Physician networks offer incentives to spur EMR use

The initiatives are among the efforts being adopted to make the technology more affordable to physicians.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. March 14, 2005.

Two physician organizations in Michigan and California announced in February that they are offering financial subsidies, discounted software or both to encourage members to adopt electronic medical records.

United Physicians, a Bingham Farms, Mich., physician organization representing about 1,500 doctors, is giving about $1 million over three years to the first 150 doctors who participate in its offer. To receive the subsidy, physicians must buy an EMR from Misys Healthcare Solutions, which has agreed to sell its software at a discount, said Steven D. Grant, MD, an internist who serves as the organization's president.

In California, Hill Physicians Medical Group, an independent practice association, has brokered a deal under which its 2,600 members can buy an EMR from NextGen Healthcare Information Systems Inc. at a substantial discount.

The initiatives are among efforts by health care organizations and other entities to make the technology more affordable to physicians, hoping that subsidies, discounts and other incentives will prompt doctors to buy EMRs sooner rather than later.

Over the past year, for example, a number of insurance companies and employers launched pay-for-performance plans offering bonuses to doctors who meet certain quality criteria, hoping that the need to easily collect the data the insurers want will spur physicians to invest in information technology.

A desire to prepare themselves for pay-for-performance programs and gain a competitive advantage drove both Hill Physicians' and United Physicians' technology initiatives.