A Tale of Two Stories: Electronic Medical Records Costs Jobs, Doctors Losing Money

For our latest rendition of A Tale of Two Stories, we need to look at what is happening in with ObamaCare. One of it’s requirements is for providers to convert to a electronic medical record, or EMR. While this, on the surface, would allow for some advantages, like making it easier to get records from distant providers in the event of a medical emergency. However, with government involved, the law of unintended consequences always rears it’s ugly head. Big Government has the details…

Last week, layoffs were announced at the University of Mississippi Medical Center due in part to the 80 million dollars that it will cost to implement a new computer system named EPIC Systems , Obama’s newly mandated electronic medical records system.

Naturally, the system Obama is forcing on an entire nation of medical professionals and hospitals is the same system owned and operated by Judith Faulkner, one of his own big donors . Faulkner is also a big donor to the Democrat Party. Not surprisingly, besides affording her the lucrative, crony capitalist business deal, Obama also put Faulkner in a key role on the Health Information Technology Policy Committee, the committee responsible for implementing the President’s e-records policy. She has become known as Obama’s medical records czar.

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One of the things about the system Price told the audience was that the system requires a pathologist to fill in a field of information on what a patient is allergic to in every case the docs deal with. If they do not fill in this field the system will “ding” the doctor on his reimbursement funds. That may not seem so absurd, but Price also noted that the pathologist has to fill out these same fields even if he is just consulting on a case by looking at a slide in a microscope and won’t actually see the patient in person.

It gets worse. Price went on to recount that this system is so dysfunctional that it requires the same fields to be filled out for a corpse at an autopsy.

“This is no lie,” Price says. “The federal government wants the pathologist to determine whether or not a corpse has any allergies. …This is nonsense.”

Because, we must “ding” practitioners for failing to list the allergies of corpses, right? Or, does Obama one day plan to cover zombies?

So, now that we’ve established that ObamaCare is increasing costs on the EMR front, let’s take a look at the fiscal health of doctors. CNN recently ran a story about how so many doctors are having financial difficulties. Newsbusters took a look at that article…

What’s interesting is that my tweeting commenter is right that Obamacare is definitely already influencing the viability of medical practices. But Ms. Parija Kavilanz’s Friday report acts as if the mind-numbingly lengthy legislation and the torrent of regulations which appear destined to end up being huge multiples of that outrageous length don’t exist, and actually blames many docs for their predicaments:

Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke.

This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.

Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource.

“A lot of independent practices are starting to see serious financial issues,” said Marc Lion, CEO of Lion & Company CPAs, LLC, which advises independent doctor practices about their finances.

Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat. But some experts counter that doctors’ lack of business acumen is also to blame.

The stories of doctors being lousy investors are legion, but to extend that to the idea that all of a sudden a lot of them have become inept at running their own businesses is ridiculous. What’s happening is that the revenues many of them are receiving are plummeting while their workload remains unchanged. Meanwhile, the fixed costs of running a practice can’t be changed on a dime.

Kavilanz does cite other factors, but makes sure to keep the following words which belong in his report out of it: “Obama,” “administration,” “Sebelius” (there are probably others, but that will do). The word “federal” appears once. The factors noted:

(One doctor) said recent steep 35% to 40% cuts in Medicare reimbursements for key cardiovascular services, such as stress tests and echocardiograms, have taken a substantial toll on revenue.

Gee, I recall that Obamacare cut about $500 billion out of Medicare over 10 years. This sure looks like one related result. Ask yourself how long any business, no matter how well-run, would last if it had to reduce what they can charge for every unit or consulting hour sold by over one-third.

So then, all of a sudden, according to CNN, doctors have lost the ability to manage their practices? But, as the Newsbusters examination points out, it’s the cuts in reimbursements that have done the damage. It would seem that the $500,000,000,000 cut to Medicare to fund ObamaCare is already starting to take it’s toll. Of course, the EMR is also going to add a massive expense.

Back when this started, we said it was Cloward-Piven for the medical sector as a whole. So far, that theory seems to be coming to pass. Hopefully, we will be able to stop it before ObamaCare causes the crisis that it was meant to cause, and usher in the brave new world of single payer health care.