EHRs a financial burden with no payback for late-career physicians
Like many of the over-60-years-old physicians -- I'm 63 -- I had hoped to practice another four or five years. But all the electronic health record costs seem to be up-front, and the rewards far down the road. All the cost-benefit studies I've seen show that adopting an EHR will cost us over-60 physicians money and, more important, time we will never recover.
At a time when primary care physicians are getting scarce, it makes little sense to try to saddle us with even higher overhead then punish us for continuing to work.
--Charles Davant, MD, Blowing Rock, N.C.
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Capitate HMO execs, not doctors
Regarding: "Massachusetts considers capitated insurance payments" (Article, June 1): As a family doctor who is capitated under an HMO plan, let me tell you Massachusetts doctors that it has been a rip-off. Fight it off before the idea takes hold.
Perhaps we should capitate the HMO chief executive officers instead. I would favor $500,000 per year each. This would save millions of dollars, which instead could be used for health care.
--Ann Ewalt Hamilton, MD, Riverside, CA
The print version of this content appeared in the July 6, 2009 issue of American Medical News.
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