AAFP Proposes Tactics For Reducing EHR Administrative Burdens

The American Academy of Family Physicians has proposed a series of approaches it says will reduce the administrative burdens EHRs impose on primary care doctors.

The recommendations, which come in the form of a letter to CMS, address health IT simplification, prior authorization and standardization of quality measurement. However, the letter leads off with EHR concerns and much of the content is focused on making physician IT use easier.

Few would argue that the average physician spends too much time struggling with EHR-related administrative work. The AAFP backs this assertion up with a couple of studies, including one finding that primary care physicians spend almost 6 hours per day interacting with EHRs. It also cites research concluding that four types of specialist spent almost 2 hours using the EHR for every hour of direct patient care.

To address these concerns, the AAFP recommends taking the following steps:

  • Eliminating HIT utilization measures in MIPS: The group argues that such measures are not needed anymore now that MIPS includes quality, cost and practice improvement measures.
  • Updating documentation requirements: With the agency’s Evaluation and Management recommendation guidelines having been developed 20 years ago, prior to the widespread use of EHRs, it’s time to rethink their use, the letter asserts. Today, the group says, they have a negative impact on EHR usability and hinder interoperability. The group recommends eliminating documentation requirements for codes 99211-99215 and 99201-99205 entirely and allowing any care team member to enter medical information.
  • Rethinking data exchange policies: The AAFP is asking CMS and ONC to focus on how and when data is exchanged rather than demanding that specific data types be included. The group also urges CMS and ONC to penalize healthcare organizations not appropriately sharing information, using its authority granted by the 21st Century Cures Act.
  • Creating standardized clinical data models: To share data effectively across the healthcare ecosystem, the AAFP argues, it’s necessary to develop nationally-recognized, consistent data models that can be used to share data efficiently. It recommends that such principles be developed by physicians and other clinicians rather than policymakers, vendors or engineers.

I don’t know about you, but I find much of this to be a no-brainer. Of course, the decades-old E/M guidelines need to be reformed, consistent data models must emerge if we hope to improve interoperability and physicians need to lead the charge.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell whether CMS and ONC are willing and prepared to listen to these recommendations. In theory, leaders at ONC should be only too glad to help providers achieve these goals and CMS should support their efforts. But given how obvious some of this is, it should have happened already. The fact that it hasn’t points up how hard all of this could be to pull off.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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