[medinformatics] MGMA Seeks Safe Harbor for Health IT

[Medical Informatics News]

The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) has requested that federal
authorities create a legal “safe harbor” that would allow hospitals to help subsidize the adoption of healthcare IT by
office-based practitioners.


In a letter to Daniel Levinson, acting inspector general at HHS, MGMA President and CEO William Jessee, M.D.,
indicated that legal barriers exist which impede physician group practices from benefiting from the technology such as
electronic medical records systems, electronic prescribing and automated, point-of-care decision-support tools.


In the letter Jessee wrote, “It is widely recognized that many practices cannot afford to purchase expensive
information technology. Recent MGMA survey data of member practices confirms that prohibitive costs are the most
significant hurdles preventing group practices from implementing new technology.” Hospitals and other organizations
that have invested in healthcare IT and would be willing to offer it either free or at a discount to physicians are
precluded from doing so by federal antikickback and Stark
physician self-referral laws, according to Jessee.


Read the full letter here.


http://medicalinformatics.weblogsinc...4000743031295/