The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is reviewing whether software functions that lead to cloned notes “should be off limits.”
HHS National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Farzad Mostashari told the Center for Public Integrity that a “policy-setting committee of experts” will “examine the issue and make recommendations on how to address it.”
This announcement comes in the wake of increased attention from CMS and the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) into electronic health record (EHR) documentation shortcuts.
Meanwhile, OIG continues to study the impact of EHR abuses that cause practices to bill an overly complex and higher-paying E/M claim than what actually should have been billed. In addition, the Department of Justice and HHS already have issued a stern warning that they’ll turn the FBI loose on hospitals that are caught selecting higher-severity codes through EHR cloned notes.
So it’s fair to say that cloned notes are gaining a bit of traction.
For the time being, if you have E/M documentation shortcut functionality on your EHR software, proceed with caution. For tips on how to determine whether these abuses are occurring at your practice before an external auditor catches them, check out this article in the current issue of Part B News.