Physician Complaints about EMR Vendor Addressed

If you’re a member of the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) and are experiencing problems with an electronic medical record (EMR) vendor, we’re here to help.

Recently, after receiving several complaints regarding an EMR vendor’s lack of responsiveness to our members’ concerns over payment of claims and other system issues, PAMED successfully intervened with their national management.

This intervention has proved to be positive as the EMR vendor’s national management was very responsive to PAMED’s call, making a resolution of issues in these practices a priority. PAMED will continue to monitor this situation and will intervene as necessary with EMR vendors that are not servicing their clients.

“This is another one of the unsung value-added benefits to membership in PAMED,” said  John Pagan, MD, PAMED board chair. “This organization has significant influence and provides great service.”

If you are experiencing problems with an EMR vendor, please call the Division of Practice Economics and Payer Relations at PAMED at (800) 228-7823, ext. 2644.

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Comments: 2


Well said....

Alan Schorr, DO at 5/31/2011 6:43:21 PM


I read many office notes from several physicians in NYS while performing IME Orthopedic exams. The turnover to EMR has glaring errors of omission, confusion,"coding exaggeration," among other concerns. These include a multipage document of a 'clinical encounter' which appears 'boilerplate,'more pften than not, and extensive enough to have an average clinical offfice day require 48 hours 'non-stop' to promulgate. The 'new clinical findings' are often a few obscure lines which are usually dedicated to the treatment plan or request, some egregiously confuse a 'post operative day #" as a "global encounter # xyz." Are these physician/ clinical or 'business office' descriptors? The examination findings are often 'buried' or just repetitious of one or more prior 'exam findings.' The paperwork, the coding hyperbole, the clinical 'morass of, at many instances hidden clinical pertinence' is discouraging to say the least. BUT, we are all on the parade of government mandated 'EMR' and their ostensible advantages - to whom??? the vendor, the maintenance software company, the govering authority or insurance auditor, the office manager/ collections manager - or the patient, clinical physician(s) reviewing a case? Yep! I can read these 'scrolls' and, yet, get very little information - difficult most often and eye straining over time - regarding chronological status. It's probably better and more informative to decipher ancient heiroglyphs and papyrii documents about a past civilization than to efficiently and effectively decipher a patient's progress - with so little volume. So, before we 'rebuke the EMR vendor' we should introspectively regard our clinical needs, expectations of clinical templates and 'adaptations needed on individual patients,' and decide what we, as clinicians are really trying to document as well as 'pay for' handsomely. So many "apps" and 'alot of craps! (qualitatively and risk-wise)It is a harbinger of an awfully different 'alienating' medicine.

CVRReina, MD at 5/26/2011 5:47:38 PM

Last Updated: 5/25/2011
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