Why Some Docs Will 'Just Say No' To MU

'This disruptive need to fulfill meaningful use criteria interfered with my ability to care for my patients'  

Thousands of eligible providers are working diligently toward EHR incentive payments, but some practices are choosing a different route: abandoning meaningful use altogether in favor of their own solutions, and finding ways to make up for the penalties they’ll incur down the road.  Some 6 percent of physicians, in fact, will be “abandoning meaningful use after meeting it in previous years,” according to the Medscape report on EHR use in 2014. In surveying nearly 20,000 doctors, Medscape found another 16 percent admitting that they would never be attesting to meaningful use in any capacity.

And although those numbers may seem small now, chances are they won’t stay that way for long as MU requirements become progressively more stringent, said Art Gross, CEO of HIPAA Secure Now.  Providers pushing back against the MU system aren't your typical renegades. They don't have an overall disdain for regulatory expectations and they aren’t opposed to the technologies and ideals fueling MU requirements. What they do have is a concern that patient service may be compromised by the demands of the mandate.

"This disruptive need to fulfill meaningful use criteria interfered with my ability to care for my patients, and despite the consequences, I stopped (attesting)," said James Legan, MD, a Montana-based physician who has opted to pay MU penalties.   Legan said the decision has opened up his practice to a whole host of opportunities that would have been overlooked otherwise.  "By not being encumbered with the process of MU, I decided to try out new technology to improve efficiency to offset the significant cost of the penalty," Legan said...