"Meaningful Use" Is Meaningfully Undefined

The stimulus bill earlier this year provided $34 billion for doctors to trade in their pen and paper for a keyboard and monitor. But the government wasn't willing to just hand out money for systems to set up electronic medical records without some accountability. Washington wants to make sure the systems it's paying for are contributing to lowering health-care costs.

A rather refreshing use of our tax dollars, don't you think?

The only problem: The bill said that the systems needed to have a meaningful use before they were eligible for stimulus funds, but the government hasn't identified what that "meaningful use" really means.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working on that definition -- no one said the government moved quickly -- but doctors are a little worried about what they're going to need to do to get their stimulus funds. In a letter to HHS, the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), which represents group practices, lays out the doctors' concerns. Essentially the MGMA would like to ensure that doctors will actually be able to get funds to recoup some of the costs they have to outlay for the systems.

Those billions of dollars will ultimately end up in the hands of companies such as IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) , along with much smaller companies like Quality Systems (Nasdaq: QSII  ) , Allscripts-Misys Health care Solutions (Nasdaq: MDRX  ) , Cerner (Nasdaq: CERN  ) , and athenahealth (Nasdaq: ATHN  ) . They all sell systems to establish electronic medical records in hospitals and doctors' offices. If the doctors aren't convinced that they'll get government reimbursement after they install the systems, they may be unwilling to buy in the first place. Many doctors certainly haven't been convinced up to this point that the investment was worth the payoff; otherwise they would have turned in their pad and paper long ago.

Interestingly, the MGMA also requests that HHS look into the costs of electronic medical record systems. If there isn't a low-cost option, the MGMA wants the HHS to come up with an alternative solution. I wonder whether a government-sponsored electronic medical records system would be as controversial as the public option is.

Are you a physician who's converted to an EHR? If so, please tell us about your experience in the comments section, below.