Fair Access to Your Data?
How the Cures Act impacts your practice

Most of you are aware of the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act) that passed in 2016 requiring providers and Electronic Health Record (EHRs) companies to grant patients access to their own health data. What you may not realize is the American Medical Association (AMA) has been working with The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to define rules that also protect your data rights as providers. These rules, in part, are designed to give dentists and physicians like you access to your own practice data without resistance from EHR vendors. In fact, the AMA released a resource last year to help you recognize information blocking when you experience it. The last of the ONC rules was just implemented on April 5th and specifically protects doctors from the ongoing EHR failures to comply with their data sharing requests.  

“Unfortunately, doctors nationwide continue to collide with roadblocks from contracted EHRs that fly in the face of this rule, and without providers advocating for themselves, this problem will likely continue.”

The New Rule

Like most conscientious providers, you are likely more familiar with your Cures Act compliance requirements than how you might benefit from them. Just as you are focused on your patients’ needs, we are looking out for yours. You deserve to know that, as reported by the AMA, information blocking rules apply when: 

• Contractual limitations are imposed on physicians to restrict their use and exchange of medical information.   
• Excessive fees are charged to create EHR interfaces or connections with other health IT. 
• Technical or nonstandard methods of implementing EHRs and other health IT are utilized that block the access, exchange or use of medical information. 

These rules specifically prohibit EHR vendors from blocking information for doctor access and are now required to comply.   

“Ongoing challenges to data access from EHRs affect your ability to make data-driven decisions for your practice.”

What Doctors are Facing

Unfortunately, doctors nationwide continue to collide with roadblocks from contracted EHRs that fly in the face of this rule, and without providers advocating for themselves, this problem will likely continue. Our team has experienced this ongoing challenge first-hand. As part of onboarding healthcare practices to our DataDx platform, we continuously struggle to access the critical EHR data necessary to generate our comprehensive real-time reports. This directly impedes our clients’ ability to run their business effectively and you deserve to know how this may be impacting your practice too.  We’ve experienced EHR non-compliance in a variety of ways.  

Initially, we encounter an average 2-to-3-month delay just waiting for a response from an EHR provider. From there, it’s a mixed bag of obstacles. Electronic health information (EHI) is held hostage by exorbitant monthly fees, some of which are higher than utilizing our entire platform. This behavior is explicitly banned by the ONC rules, as shown above. In other instances, EHR companies place unfounded limitations on the quantity and quality of EHI they will release to the same practice whose patient care created the data to begin with. Another issue that doctors face too often is their EHR provider hasn’t gone through the necessary upgrades to easily interface with other health IT vendors, despite knowing this rule would go into effect this month. For all these reasons and more, physicians and dentists are being kept from their own data month after month, despite changes to the law. 

How Your Patients are Impacted

Ongoing challenges to data access from EHRs affect your ability to make data-driven decisions for your practice. That means you can run into inefficiencies that drive up expenses which impact your revenue. When you add in the excessive fees being charged for the privilege of connecting with your own information, your cost per unit of care can only go in one direction: Up. All these financial losses trickle down to your patients and are bound to inflate their medical costs over time. 

What You Can Do

As physicians and dentists who have contracted with your EHR vendors, you are the only one who can effectively advocate for your practice. The AMA suggests that if your data is being withheld in any way without cause, contact your provider and make sure they are addressing their lack of compliance. It is your right to know when and how your own business information will be released to you or your chosen interface. If you are met with continued resistance, the AMA encourages you to file an information-blocking complaint against your EHR provider.  

We Are Here to Help

Navigating a conversation like this with a technology company can seem daunting before you even pick up the phone. Let us help you. Our experts are thoroughly familiar with every aspect of the EHR information-blocking issue and are happy to join you as a support during your call. Contact Chief Business Officer of DataDx, Glen Lawrence for further guidance on how to advocate for your doctor data rights.