While the advent of electronic medical records (EMR) was supposed to reduce costs,...

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davidingeorgia Comments (2681)
 
Unexpectedly! Another federal program does the opposite of what it was supposed to do
. Fraud is the lifeblood of the federal government and of those who make their living leeching off of it and the taxpayer. The only surprise here is that anyone is surprised.
23 Sep 2012, 07:45 AM Reply Like

atlantis43 Comments (25)
 
Actually, EMR's help the providers to get 'properly' reimbursed for their services, rather than contribute to fraud. Providers have, in the past, tended to 'undercode' their services, in order to avoid time-consuming record audits to which insurers subject them for any 'high level' services billed. Extensive paperwork is generally necessary to justify any such services in the medical records, and the audits further add to office overhead.
EMR's simplify such record-keeping, as well as simplify the responses to substantiate these claims.
Though I am not trying to say that fraud does not occasionally occur on the part of such providers, the more important fraud is that of the insurers, including Medicare & Medicaid, who, over the last twenty years of attempted medical cost-containment, have used smoke & mirrors to obfuscate proper reimbursement for medical services to levels which barely cover provider overhead.
23 Sep 2012, 11:18 AM Reply Like

169060 Comment (1)
 
I agree. The question then becomes what impact this activity will have on projected savings from the Affordable Care Act.
24 Sep 2012, 08:17 AM Reply Like