The article about Pediatric Associates in CA has a nugget with a potentially outsized impact: the implication that VFC vaccines…
News 1/12/12
CMS releases a Meaningful Use Attestation report from November 2011 that provides insight into which EHRs have the most attestations. I played with the numbers a bit and created this chart showing the top ambulatory EHR products in terms of attestations. EpicCare Ambulatory tops the list with 28% of the 21,318 attestations; eClinicalWorks follows with less than 9%, Allscripts Professional at 5.6%, and athenaClinicals is at 5%. And if you combine all of Allscripts’ ambulatory EHR products, they have 7% of the ambulatory EHR attestations. Fascinating stuff that raises questions, such as what percentage of vendor users does each attestation number represent? For example, eClinicalWorks reports having 60,000 physicians on their combined PM/EHR product, meaning only 3% of their providers have attested. That compares to athenahealth, which claims to have 6,000 athenaclinical providers, meaning 20% of the EHR providers have attested. It will take some time to find more facts and figures, but I’m hoping to dig deeper. [Update from Inga: Based on the vast differences in practice demographics and reasons for buying a particular EMR product, comparing each vendors’ percentage of attesting providers may have limited value. For example, though eCW has 60,000 physician users, a significant number are CHC providers who are ineligible to qualify for MU incentives. A vendor offering a free solution, such as Practice Fusion, may attract more providers who are more interested in basic EMR functionality than in qualifying for MU incentives. Regardless of how you crunch the numbers, however, the overall number of EPs attesting through November (21,318) seems quite low.]
By the way, CMS says that as of December, 35,515 EP had successfully attested for Medicare Meaningful Use incentives. while another 355 were unsuccessful. Medicare paid EPs $275 million.
Practice Fusion announces it has raised an additional $2 million in funding. The company has now raised over $38 million from Band of Angels, Felicis Ventures, and others.
Adventist Health will implement Cerner Ambulatory EHR across its 130 outpatient clinics.
Winchester Radiologists (VA) contracts with HealthPro Medical Billing to provide billing services for its 17 physicians.
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Associates selects PatientKeeper Charge Capture and PatientKeeper P4P for its 250 clinicians.
Billing service provider MedData acquires MedDirect, a provider of RCM management and patient communication services.
Idaho Health Data Exchange (IHDE) signs an agreement with Greenway Medical to provide interoperability between Greenway’s PrimeSUITE EHR and IHDE’s HIE.
The American Podiatric Medical Association partners with HealthFusion to promote the use of HealthFusions’s MediTouch EHR.
The number of retail clinics grew 11.2% last year to 1,355 and is predicted to continue growing into 2012. One reason: the forecasted increase in demand for medical care, fueled by health reform and more access to medical coverage. CVS, one of the country’s largest retail clinic, plans to open 500 new MinuteClinics over the next five years.
Age makes a difference when it comes to physicians perceiving benefits of HIT. The majority of US doctors believe that technology does not improve diagnostic decisions, improve health outcomes, or improve the quality of treatment decisions. Most doctors under the age of 50, however, believe HIT offers numerous benefits, including a positive impact on outcomes, faster access to health services, reduced medical errors, and improved care coordination.
The CMS attestation chart does not show Practice Fusion. They claim to have 130,000 members. How many of their users have attested?
And Inga, how about this for a fun project: add up the number of providers claimed by each of the major EMR companies. See how that matches the estimates of number of total providers in the US, and the percentage supposedly using an EMR. Just between eClinical and PF, they claim over 400,000 providers! My point….I think some people are padding their numbers.
It would be great if vendors were more transparent in terms of disclosing the actual number of providers using their EHR products. But keep in mind that just because an individual is a “provider” does not mean that he/she is an EP and eligible to attest for MU. For example, provider figures may include NPs or doctors with CHCs. What would be more helpful than the number of providers is a disclosure by vendors as to the number of EPs using their products. Of course some EPs may opt out of MU program because they feel it’s not worth their time and money. Despite the challenges of getting more precise EP numbers, we need better benchmarks to compare products and vendors. Having more details would allow stakeholders to drill down and understand why (and if) EPs are more successful when utilizing one EHR over another.
Just wait for the next round of these numbers. The majority of Practice Fusion’s community completed their attestation in December. We’ll have a strong showing of doctors using our free EHR to pocket 2011 Meaningful Use incentives when CMS does another update.
“The majority of Practice Fusion’s community completed their attestation in December.”
So that means over 65,000? How many do you predict will have attested by 1/1/12?
You can’t look at the raw attestation data. Not all attestations are equal. EP attestations are not the same as hospital. You have to actually analyze the raw data for it to have any value.
Not 65,000, but we’ll certainly be toward the top of the CMS rankings.
I looked at the same data (MU attestation) and one interesting thing was that 16 EHR vendors made up 80.5% of attestations whereas the next 19.5% was distributed to 165 vendors. These were all EP & Medicare only.
I was also interested in practice fusion numbers and it had 103 attestations (same EP & Medicare only). I expected much higher number given the noise/claims this company makes.
If I read that correctly, that CMS Attestation Chart was an Inga creation after playing “with the numbers a bit.”
So, first, thanks for creating the visual aid, Inga! Nicely done and helpful.
Second, great conversation starter, eh? 🙂
Lastly, agreed, the overall number of EPs attesting does seem low. 🙁
I think you’ll find this post I did interesting where I analyze the percentage of doctors that registered vs attested and what I think we can expect from MU attestation in 2012: http://www.emrandhipaa.com/emr-and-hipaa/2012/01/16/meaningful-use-numbers-from-2011-and-looking-towards-2012-%e2%80%93-meaningful-use-monday/
I’m interested in those that were unsuccessful at attesting to meaningful use. I wonder what the reasons were for the failure. That would be useful info, no?