As it has not applied to us, I had not paid much attention to the meaningful use part of the electronic record. I got my first exposure to it last night.
You have GOT to be kidding me.
I have heard over and over that medicine, and especially primary care, is in a pretty demoralized state in most of the US, and I appreciate we breathe a fairly rarified atmosphere in the North, but to submit to this? Is this really what you dreamed of doing with your life when you got your acceptance letter to medical school?
Consider. You hope, maybe, to get paid something like $40,000 if you see a lot of Medicare. Subtract the hardware, software, IT and lost income, and possibly you may see half of that in profit. Divide that by the number of patients you have to see to achieve the billing target. You are getting paid about $1.00 an hour to document worthless information AND subject yourself to any auditor who is told to go find all that fraud and abuse the government KNOWS is out there because the costs of this program far exceed the amount they told the public that it would cost.
I have a better idea. Why not tell them to stuff it, and instead of spending your effort documenting if the patient's favorite language is Chinese, spend your efforts selling magazine subscriptions out of your waiting room? I'm sure you will come out ahead financially, and it will be less demeaning. Remember Annie Landers : "No one can take advantage of you without your permission."
Last edited by dgrauman; 06/07/2011 1:13 PM.
