HHS To Give Incentives For Electronic Health Records

by Stuart Shapiro

This is as close as public policy gets to a win-win situation.  On Tuesday, the Obama Administration announced incentives for doctors and hospitals to make their records more electronic.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced final rules to help improve Americans’ health, increase safety and reduce health care costs through expanded use of electronic health records (EHR). . . Under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009, eligible health care professionals and hospitals can qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments when they adopt certified EHR technology and use it to achieve specified objectives.

Ever wonder why you have to fill out a form with tons of information at the office of a doctor you’ve been referred to by your primary care doc (who has all the information you are filling out)?  This will make it less likely that you will have to do so.  It can also reduce medical costs and medical errors. This is a policy area that both Newt Gingrich and Hillary Clinton have spoken in favor of.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.