Technology and medicine have a tortured history. Medicine has been one of the last segments of our society to be brought into the computer age. And those of us who provide patient care on a daily basis are suffering every day with electronic medical records. Not only do we waste time creating the electronic records – we waste time trying to find relevant information buried under mounds of garbage!

Older doctors are having a particularly difficult time with the transition to electronic medical records. Doctors are retiring in record numbers and there are already shortages developing which are becoming more acute with increasing numbers of people insured. Why isn’t there a grandfather clause exempting doctors over a certain age from economic penalties for not adopting electronic medical records?

One other simple thing that could be done to streamline medical care is that all insurance cards should have a metallic strip encoded with every patient’s insurance information in a standard format that could be read by all electronic medical records. Just like you use an electronically encoded credit card or ATM card this card could simplify data entry and reduce mistakes.

Forgive me if I am cynical and suggest a reason why this has not been done by insurance companies. The reason I suspect is the claims payers want us to make mistakes. Every mistake on an insurance claim delays payment and allows them to hold onto their money a little longer. If insurance companies make it difficult enough some claims might just fall through the cracks! We have had some companies put multiple addresses on insurance cards and whichever one you pick seems to be the wrong one! And while electronic clearing houses were supposed to solve these problems not every insurance company uses an electronic clearinghouse. Even those companies who do use electronic clearinghouses have managed to confuse things so much that our offices make mistakes. So we spend more time filing insurance claims. Of course this raises our costs and reduces the payers expenditures. Good for the bottom line of the insurance company making quarterly statements to their shareholders and bad for medical practitioners actually providing medical care.

If there was a genuine desire to improve medical care and simplify things for medical offices, then every patient’s medical history, claims information , etc. would be read from their insurance card and directly entered into our electronic medical record systems! That would reduce our clerical expenses and more importantly reduce medical errors!
These are just a few simple things that could be done to start to improve medical care and reduce medical costs. Let’s see if anything happens!