Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Legislation part of continued effort to kick-start HIT adoption.

The Senate approved the Wired for Health Care Quality Act by voice vote on Nov. 18. The bipartisan legislation--the first health information technology bill Congress has ever passed--promotes utilizing HIT to expand the use of electronic medical records and provides incentives for providers to implement the technology.

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, sponsored the bill, and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) co-sponsored it. In addition, the bill includes legislation Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) previously introduced.

"This technology would improve patient care by reducing medical errors and allowing for more efficient record keeping to help save lives," Enzi said. "Right now it's quicker to have the operation than it is to get the records from the hospital to the doctor's office. Health information technology can change this."

If a similar bill passes in the House, it would establish by law the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, which President Bush had already ordered. The bill would also require the Department of Health and Human Services to set certain technology standards and would require that federal HIT purchases follow these standards. Across the nation, most health care providers have been slow to adopt HIT. Therefore, under the bill, the government would provide funds and grants to help providers to begin using this technology. In addition, the bill calls for health care quality measures that those providers receiving federal funds for HIT must follow.

Senators Laud IT Value To Health Care

HIT systems offer a variety of benefits to patients and the health industry as a whole, according to information supplied by Sen. Kennedy's office. For instance, secure privacy protections help link these systems to a patient's medical records and can improve care by warning a physician or nurse if an order or prescription may harm a patient. Computerized records also allow doctors to examine a patient's entire medical record at once, which would improve care coordination.

Proper HIT application could save the nation $140 billion a year. "When millions of Americans struggle to afford health care for their families, it is profoundly wrong to squander more than half a trillion dollars each year on administrative expenses from using obsolete paper records instead of modern information technology throughout the healthcare system," Kennedy argued.

HIT could also reduce medical errors with prescriptions, Enzi noted. "Instead of having to decipher the doctor's handwriting the information could be given to the pharmacist electronically," he said.