Processing Quality Measures Charges $40K Per Physician Each Year

The outcomes of a survey of physicians practices "can be analyzed as a referendum not merely on the current state of quality measurements of physicians, but also of electronic medical records," claims the lead study author.

Physician practices spend more than $15.4 billion per year reporting quality measures that nearly 3 out of 4 physicians consider do not depict the best measures of quality, in accordance to a research this week in Health Affairs.

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College and the Medical Group Management Association surveyed 394 physician practices from across the nation discovered that physicians and their staff averaged 15.1 hours per physician per week processing quality metrics, which is the equivalent of 785.2 hours per physician per year, at an average cost of $40,069 per physician each year.

The survey discovered that physicians spent 2.6 hours each week dealing with quality measures, time that could have been used to give care for an additional nine patients. The times spent processing data varied greatly relying upon the practice specialty.