ANN ARBOR, MI – Some 62 percent of CIOs responding to a recent survey said their facilities are not planning to offer physicians medical record software or supporting services.
The survey, by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), suggests that exemptions to federal anti-kickback laws and physician self-referral laws won’t immediately result in dissemination of medical records software to physicians through hospitals.
The exemptions, approved by the Department of Health and Human Services, were intended to enable hospitals to cost-effectively offer information technology to medical staff physicians.
However, the CHIME survey found that only 45 of 117 responding CIOs said their organizations are planning to take advantage of the Stark exception and anti-kickback safe harbor provisions to donate EHR software.
Many organizations planning to take advantage of the exemptions reported that they still are developing approaches through which physicians can pay the 15 percent of software and implementation costs required by the exemptions.
CIOs commenting on the exemptions said their organizations were concerned about tax implications if the IRS were to rule that such plans provided impermissible private benefit or inurement that jeopardized organizations’ not-for-profit status. The IRS issued a ruling on May 11 that resolved those tax status concerns.
“The potential IRS implications froze a lot of people,” said Rick Schooler, vice president and CIO of Orlando Regional Healthcare and a CHIME board member.
Written responses by those moving forward with such arrangements indicated that organizations plan to develop formal contracts, service agreements or memorandums of understanding with physician practices that get IT products or services.
Offering affiliated physicians health records software involves making a conscious decision to enter a new business line and provide sufficient resources to handle installation, training and ongoing support of off-site practices.
“The fact that the majority of CIOs polled by the CHIME survey aren’t currently pursuing use of the exceptions isn’t surprising,” Schooler said. “A move in this direction requires an organization plan and commitment as well as funding.”