Value-based Care Policy can Address Physician EHR Documentation Issues

Value-based Care Policy can Address Physician EHR Documentation Issues

New research suggests that the shift to value-based care policy will address the EHR documentation demands faced by healthcare providers.

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Several studies have shown that, in this EHR-era, clinicians benefit greatly from professional support for clinical documentation. In fact, the EHR-integrated solutions provided by medical transcription companies are a good example of such support. EHR Intelligence recently reported on a new study of physician EHR documentation activities under the feefor-service model, which found that physicians spent less time with patients than expected by federal incentive payment programs.

Health care experts say that EHRs allow physicians to retrieve and track patient data more easily. Electronic health records are much better organized than paper charts, helping providers aggregate and report results effectively for proper reimbursement. At the same time, many physicians have reported that EHR use is detrimental to the patient-physician relationship.

The new study, which was published in Health Affairs, reported that physicians spent half their clinical time on EHR documentation. Therefore, the researchers suggest that the goals of the Quality Payment Program and value-based care policy should address EHR documentation demands on physicians. The researchers recorded and evaluated data from more than 470 primary care physicians working on 765,129 EHRs during the period 20112014. Their key findings are as follows: -

The physicians logged over 31 million EHR transactions over the study period

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Providers logged an average of 3.08 hours on office visits and 3.17 hours on desktop medicine each day

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Desktop medicine covered activities such as communicating with patients through a secure patient portal, responding to patients’ online requests for prescription refills or medical advice, ordering tests, sending staff messages, and reviewing test results.

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Physicians allocate clinically active time equally to desktop medicine work and to face-to-face ambulatory care visits

The team says that, as physicians spend so much time on EHR activities every day, the current shift from fee-for-service to value-based care is step in the right direction as it will accurately reimburse physicians for their efforts. Under the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) of the Quality Payment Program, physicians need to focus on the following areas: •

Quality Reporting

•

Clinical Practice Improvement Activities

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•

Advancing Care Information (which will replace Meaningful Use)

•

Resource Use

The study authors say that the Quality Payment Program under MACRA is designed specifically to adapt federal incentives to the dynamic technological healthcare landscape.

Practices will have the flexibility to deliver care in a way that best meets patients’ needs such as in the office or through virtual encounters. In fact, the researchers found that more patients now prefer other service options over face-to-face visits. Virtual visits included services like telephone encounters (9 percent), physician-patient communication via the secure patient portal (3 percent), and refilling prescriptions (2 percent). Under the valuebased reimbursement model, physicians can safely opt to focus on virtual visits to provide quality care, with no fear of penalties.

Whether in-office visits or virtual encounters, physicians including specialists, can rely on US based medical transcription service companies for customized documentation support.

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