HFMA NEWS

Despite the promises it offers health care and quality improvement, only a small minority of U.S. physicians have embraced electronic health records (EHRs) as a routine part of practice, says a study report in the June 19 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The survey of 2,758 physicians shows that only 4 percent have a fully functional EHR system and 13 percent have a basic one.

The survey shows that 16 percent of physicians said their practice had purchased an EHR but had not employed it yet. Another 26 percent said their practice was planning on purchasing a digital recordkeeping system within the next two years. Also, physicians who practiced in groups of at least 50 were three times more likely as those in very small practices (three doctors or less) to have a basic EHR. Nevertheless, only a minority of physicians in these larger groups (17 percent) had a fully functional EHR and 49 percent did not have an EHR at all.

Cost and complexity are key barriers. Two-thirds of physicians without EHRs cited affordability as the reason; other reasons included finding the right EHR, concern about ROI, and the fact that the system may become obsolete quickly. Read the article.

More than 27,000 healthcare providers (about 6 percent of all such providers) who were paid under Medicare during CY06 had payroll and other agreed-to federal tax debts totaling more than $2 billion, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis of data provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and IRS. The $2 billion in unpaid tax debts includes only those debts reported on a tax return or assessed by IRS through its enforcement programs. According to the GAO, this $2 billion figure is understated because some providers owed taxes under tax identification numbers (TINs) separate from the TINs that received the Medicare payments, or they did not file their tax returns.

GAO examined about 436,000 Medicare providers who received payments in 2006. Among other investigative activities, the agency compared claim payment data from CMS and tax debt data from the IRS. It found that $896 million, or about half, of the back taxes were from payroll taxes the providers withheld from employees but did not turn over to the Treasury Department. In some cases, the funds were diverted into personal accounts, according to the report. Read the highlights.