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Mostashari: Sequestration will be difficult for Meaningful Use program

March 6th, 2013 Comments off

 

Sequestration, set to begin April 1, will prove to be a painful blow to the Meaningful Use Medicare incentive program, National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari said Wednesday, speaking to members of the press at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans. Medicare reimbursements are set to be reduced by 2 percent, a total that, according to Mostashari, will take roughly $3 million away from ONC’s budget.”To provide a little context, in 2004, when President Bush started–by executive order–the Office of the National Coordinator, our first year’s budget was $60 million, and we had 1 percent of physicians who were prescribing electronically via electronic health records,” Mostashari said. “Last year, our budget was $60 million–in fact, I think it was $117 less–and we had 70 percent of physicians e-prescribing via EHRs.”

Mostashari ran down a growing list issues that have cropped up since 2004 for ONC–including security and usability issues–as well as growing responsibilities of the office–including creating national guidance–in solidifying his point about just how much the cuts would impact healthcare.

“We have development of national policy around Meaningful Use … and the $20 billion in health IT incentive programs, and the $3 trillion we spend on healthcare in this country, and our budget was $60 billion. Oh no, oops, it’s not $60 million, it’s now $57 million, with $3 million cut based on sequestration. Absent a furlough of our staff, it is going to mean that we have a major cut in contracts that we have.

“There are going to be things that the industry expects us to do, that providers and patients will expect us to do, that we simply will not be able to do. We have zero flexibility in terms of how the sequester cuts were taken. We are under an account, and that account is going to be cut. It’s very difficult,” he said.

5 Biggest Issues Doctors Face in 2012

January 13th, 2012 Comments off
 The biggest issues impacting doctors in 2011 are going to be dogging them into 2012 says the Physicians Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports physicians.

The foundation’s Physicians Watch List for 2012, released earlier this week, identifies five key areas the organization believes will have the biggest impact on doctors next year.

They are:

1. The changing nature of medical practices. As operating practices becomes increasingly more challenging, doctors are faced with choices such as affiliating with hospitals or joining a group practice.

2. Decreased return on increased burden. More regulations and administrative burdens often means less time with patients and more frustration for doctors, especially as they face a Medicare payment cut effective Jan. 1.

3. Acute shortages of primary care physicians. Fewer primary care physicians in the face of more patients means those in practice will have to shoulder more responsibilities.

4. Critical need for physician leadership tools and skills. In order for doctors to survive and thrive in the changing healthcare landscape, they will need to focus more on business and people management.

5. Impact on patients. Doctors will have to figure out how to juggle their increased burdens – decreasing reimbursement, more regulations and administrative tasks – while improving quality of care.

The foundation’s Physicians Watch List was generated based on the organization’s nationwide polls of doctors, from researching the literature about what doctors are currently facing and listening to the members of its board, many of whom are from medical societies, said Lou Goodman, PhD, president of the Physicians Foundation.

“We felt that these (key areas) would really help doctors and help their societies that represent doctors to provide services to keep quality high and maintain a viable practice,” he said.

“We’ve kind of painted this picture: Look at all these potentially horrible things that are happening,” Goodman added, “but there’s an answer and we’re going to try to provide resources and funding to try to help you address them … well, to the extent we can.”