By: Katie Booth
The New York Times recently reported that the switch to Electronic Health Records (“EHRs”) may be contributing to rising Medicare costs. The Times described two hospitals where the portion of patients billed at the highest reimbursement rate rose by over 40% when the hospitals adopted EHRs. The Times also reported that in hospitals that switched to EHRs between 2006 and 2010, Medicare payments rose 47%. Medicare payments for hospitals that did not adopt EHRs rose 32%.
There are several potential explanations for this increase in billing. One is that doctors are simply doing a better job electronically recording the same care they’ve always given, leading to higher Medicare billing. Another is that some doctors are abusing the EHR system by upcoding patients or copying and pasting examination histories, fraudulently increasing Medicare billing.
A third explanation is that EHR systems actually change the way doctors practice medicine. In the process of asking doctors for particular data points, EHR systems may remind doctors to look for particular symptoms or to provide particular treatments that doctors may not have considered otherwise. It is thus possible that EHRs have led to higher Medicare bills because they have increased the amount of time doctors spend diagnosing and treating patients.