Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell has agreed to work with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to identify specific ways to fix the faltering Meaningful Use health IT incentive program, either legislatively or administratively. Burwell made the pledge to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) during a hearing on the HHS 2016 budget before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s health subcommittee Thursday,
Alexander, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said that he and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) formed a bipartisan working group on the HELP Committee “to identity five or six problems in the electronic health records system that we can address administratively … or legislatively if we have to.” He asked Burwell if she would commit to assisting the senators in building and acting on this list in the next 21 months.
Burwell responded, “Yes,” adding, “I think we’ve got a working group of staff ready to go, and we are committed to do that. I think that this is extremely important in and of itself, but [because of] all of the things it touches. We’re going to talk about so many things it touches.” Burwell noted that EHRs have an impact on use of opiods, precision medicine and overall reform of the healthcare delivery system.
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“Where healthcare is going,” Burwell said, “this is a core part.”
Alexander’s HELP Committee held a hearing last month in which he and other Republicans said HHS should be helping healthcare providers adopt EHRs rather than imposing Medicare penalties for not meeting Meaningful Use. “The government’s spent $28 billion subsidizing electronic health records. It sounded like a wonderful idea, but half the doctors are choosing not to participate in the program. Instead, they’ll face Medicare penalties this year,” the senator from Tennessee said Thursday.
His staff provided data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stating that 257,000 physicians and other “eligible providers” would be subject to penalties in 2015 to support his claim. The American Medical Association said that the number represents “more than 50 percent of eligible professionals,” though it is unclear whether these practitioners are choosing not to participate in Meaningful Use.
Alexander noted that the Obama administration has a year and nine months remaining. “What I would like to do [in that time] is to move up toward the top of your list and our list doing something about electronic health records,” he said.
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“Doctors don’t like their electronic medical record systems by and large,” Alexander continued. “They say they disrupt the workflow. They interrupt the doctor-patient relationship. They haven’t been worth the effort,” he said.
“So, what I’d like to ask you is will you commit to putting on your list of things that you’d like to get done in the year and nine months that you plan to be here working with us, identifying five or six things that would make this promise of electronic health records something that physicians and providers look forward to instead of something they endure?” Alexander asked Burwell.
Alexander said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, was among other HELP Committee members interested in participating in this effort to prioritize changes to Meaningful Use.
Republicans on the HELP Committee provided this video of the exchange:
