Hi Roy/hockeyref:
I would love to give a lecture on CCHIT, Roy! I did a Sermo poll to see how many docs there knew about the HIT tie-in to the repair of the 10% Medicare pay cut. A full 38% didn't know anything about it! (URL:
https://md.sermo.com/medical/ticket/details?nav=on&id=14378 )
The PPT presentation was done on a hunch that I had written over 70 letters and other postings on emrupdate, but I felt that the information was scattered all over the place. I wanted to make one solid repository of information where one can pick up on the salient points of the reality of the situation in the areas of CCHIT, P4P, and ePrescribing.
My patient advocate was astounded at how dumb politicians seem to be on these issues- one told her courier that "anything with computers must be good". What was neat was that the PPT presentation was finished 1 week before the vote on HIT by chance- I didn't know how important and how quickly it would serve our cause. It was just dumb luck. It's like a game of chess- HIMSS and its Congressional minions with all its money thought that they had a check mate and we then suddenly stole their queen. I'm sure that they are pissed!
This patient is very secretive because as a member of the Congressional oversight committee she once got mugged (hit over the head and left unconscious in her room) forcing her to retire from her position. She was instrumental in bringing computers to Congress some 15 years ago. She currently works with a group of lawyers close to where I live. She still has a lot of connections and I was surprised in the manner that she went out of her way to help us. In fact, at this point she is trying to "follow the money" to see if anyone in Congress took a bribe to get the HIT legislation passed, which as you know is a criminal act. All she would have to do is to report it... and the game would be over. She just knows which buttons to push. Heck, I tried to contact some of these Congressmen and their walls seemed impenetrable.
If it comes down to a round 2, it would great to have a team of us docs go there to testify how screwed we're getting by this legislation. I hope that they allow us to- not AMA/aafp/ACP eggheads, but real docs, the ones in the trenches.
