Small practices give lawmakers an earful about DC-centric Health IT regulations

Small medical practices warned Congress that health information technology risks being less than useless if it's designed to meet bureaucrats' arbitrary standards rather than the needs of doctors and patients.

Testifying at a House Small Business healthcare subcommittee hearing, the CEO of HIT Services company Ingenix said cost isn't the main reason physician's offices are struggling to make the switch to paperless. Rather, Andy Slavitt testified, the "purchase and design of technology (…) have taken a back burner to all of the compliance reporting requirements" needed to qualify for federal incentive payments. "Today," Slavitt said in written testimony, "the end-users, doctors and patients, are further away than ever from system design, because new product development is focused on satisfying those regulatory hurdles, rather than on simple innovations that improve productivity."