EHR stimulus could it be too little too late!

Last week CMS announced its plans for the new fiscal budget coming up. The proposed budget includes among other things an across the board Fee Reduction of 21%. In addition, there are specific diagnostic fee cuts and changes in RVU all which will combine to neutralize the Stimulus benefit for adding a digital information system. Forty-four thousand ($44,000) over five year increase per physician for EHR stimulus pales in the shadow of a 21% decrease of Medicare Payments plus diagnostic testing reduction plus RVU reduction. While hospital fees are going up by 3% private practice physician fees are plummeting.
The outcome of this type of program is obvious. There will be no adoption by the private practice physicians for purchasing EHR’s for the foreseeable future. The majority of private physicians are internal medicine and family care physicians. They do not generate enough income as it is to purchase these systems and they do not generate enough for hospitals to invest in purchasing them. However, specialist do offer the ability of hospitals to make more money so they on the other hand will be sort after and I would predict there will be more groups especially large ones being purchased by hospitals. What won’t happen is the wide spread adoption of EHR’s under this type of fee reduction strategy.