In the various economic recovery bills being debated in Congress there is $20 billion being proposed for health care information technology. Most of this $18 billion will be in the form of incentive payments to doctors versus out-right grants to implement new electronic medical record systems.
According to Bloomberg If you look at the stock prices of the various companies in this sector the one that has increased the most Athena Health is owned by ex president Bush's cousin - and it makes it money by increasing the rate at which hospitals and doctors are paid versus increasing the health of the patients.
Bloomberg states that
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House’s passage of President Barack Obama’s $20 billion proposal to promote electronic health records may do more for George W. Bush’s cousin Jonathn Bush than for one of Obama’s advisers.
Do we really want to subsidize a private company that is focused on the billing side of the house versus providing patients and providers better access to lab results, medication lists and other high value data?
Since the bill pays out over time versus an up-front lump sum those companies that use a subscription model are the ones most likely to benefit and there is a clear ROI on speeding up billing.
So it is possible that we are going to invest 20 billion so that patients can be billed faster? We do need to streamline the billing process for doctors but that wasn't supposed to be the intent of this bill. Part of the AthenaHealth model is to allow doctors to stop you at the front desk for not only your per vist cost (ie $25) but any deductible or co-pay as well (ie the 20%) versus billing the insurance and waiting for a month.
There is very little time to influence these bills as Senator Peloski wants it on the President's desk by Feb 16th.
If you want the money to go to job creation and clinical software versus financial collection software please consider contacting your Senator. and encourage them to either limit the money to clinical software or include more money in the form of grants or loans for rural and or small physician practices to implement it.
Perhaps 20 billion no longer is worth worrying how it is spent but I care. That works out to be over $56,000 for every doc in the country according to one estimate.
(note: I am a computer geek not a writer but I am passionate about transforming our health care system and I don't think the first step should be to speed up the billing process but please feel free to make gentle suggestions in the comments section)