Home Forums Discussions General Discussion FIGmd Big Brother is watching

Good afternoon everyone,

Anyone have experience with FIGmd? Apparently this is a third party, who works with insurance companies, to basically have access to your electronic medical record and get all the information the insurance company wants. As they describe it "The problem remains, if the information is contained in one EMR, it is accessible only in that EMR. The reality is that patients often see multiple providers resulting in a fragmented medical record across the health care system. There is no central repository of information for patient's medical record. CareFirst is partnering with FIGmd, Inc, a leading healthcare technology company, to create a large-scale clinical data integration initiative to help solve this problem."

CareFirst, the Maryland Blue Cross/Blue Shield affiliate, is "strongly suggesting" that we participate with this. They claim that this will benefit us because we "will no longer need to physically pull and copy records."

I have concerns on at least 3 levels.

First, and simplest, does the technology work? Does it "play nicely" with Amazing Charts?

Second, "Your practice will have to pay $460 per NPI per year to connect to FIGmd." We have two providers, (the practice has a third NPI,) but I imagine it would be $920 per year. Payments to us may be increased next year, over a very very complicated formula which factors many many things into our payment schedule. Nothing guaranteed.

Third, I do not like big brother watching. This may be the way of the future, this may be inevitable, but I just have real reluctance to put all of the patient's information "out there".

Does anyone have experience with this particularly, or any similar systems? Any thoughts or comments generally on this issue? .

Thanks so much.

Gene

If you are paying a biller/coder or farming out your billing; it seems redundant. I mean sure they are supposed to be doing even extra. I guess I wouldn't get near it. Just my 1/2 cent.

I use FIGmd/ Prime for Mips/CQM quality measure. We have no other choice. Yes they have complete continuout access to the entire database. Yes they are in India.

Sign the BA agreement. Hope for the best.

The tech works ok without excess load on the server. But it is another program sitting on the server.

Yep, I am in Maryland too and Carefirst is pushing this. Not a chance that I will participate! You want me to pay you a fee so you can collect my patients' private information and my work product, which you will use for nefarious purposes and then resell for big $$. NO!

It is time for us to stop being pawns in this crazy insurance system. Direct primary care appears to be the way to go. Luckily, I am near the end of my career.

The requirements to pay additional fees just keep adding up.
Our liabilty grows with every signup
We do not get anything in our compensation formula to reimburse us.
I know it will end for me.
I feel sorry for young doctors -- but where are they??
They should be marching in the streets and beating down the doors of Congress