Ohio tops in EHR usage, with the other states catching up

According to Ohio Health Information Partnership, around 6,750 doctors in Ohio, the maximum count of physicians compared to any other state, have committed to electronic health records (EHR), leading the nation in usage of EHR’s. Greater Cincinnati has nearly 985 physicians who have committed to or are already using the records systems. Ohio is currently transitioning its legacy Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) into a new Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) compliant system.

Various other states are following suit, more than 60% Medicaid providers in Florida are interested in applying for incentive payments for the meaningful use of electronic health records as reported by the journal Health Affairs, while more than 1,000 providers in South Carolina are now on the road to meaningful use. California Healthcare Foundation has reported that 55% percent of California’s primary care physicians use an electronic health record in their practice.

The federal coordinator for health information technology announced that almost 100,000 primary care providers across all the states have committed to electronic records. An upward trend has been observed across US states in consumer use of EHR’s, with total EHR market revenues expected to increase by $6.5 billion in 2012 as compared to $973.2 million in 2009, according to a report by Frost & Sullivan.

• In contrast to the growing trend, implementing the meaningful use attestation standards by the current healthcare organizations has been at a slower rate
• Amongst the total of 114644 users registered in an EHR system, only 8303 actually meet meaningful use standards and qualify for federal incentives

In this scenario, physicians can look for medical healthcare experts/services to achieve the required benefits of an electronically governed paperless office. Amongst the top reasons for other Physicians not accepting EHR uncertainty, time involvement and implementation efforts seem to be topping the list. They are fervently looking for professionally unbiased opinion on choosing the right EMR and successfully implementing it.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com has been helping physicians not only in Ohio but across the 50 states choose appropriate technology for their individual practices and also offers professional support and assistance to healthcare providers to keep abreast of the changing industry norms, and successfully qualify for federal incentives through meaningful use of electronic health records.

For more information visit: Medical billing companies, Ohio Medical Billing