Providers of mental health care are more eager than ever today to beef up their EHR capability, or Electronic Health Record technology. No provider today can afford to get behind the curve of what is an ever growing and enormous need to handle the massive amounts of data that has become an inherent aspect of delivering mental health services.
EHR software is also now highly specific to the various categories of mental health treatment, such as behavioral therapy. A Behavioral Health EHR system is tailored to handle that treatment mode.
There is a special urgency today for mental healthcare providers to choose the right system. To demonstrate why this is so, consider the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. A primary component of that legislation is the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.
Part of the goal of HITECH was designed to encourage healthcare providers to adopt EHR as a fundamental way of delivering services. The law offers significant incentives to those who do so. For example, qualified practices can earn $44,000 in reimbursements in the form of increased Medicare and Medicaid premiums if they adopt a Behavioral Health EHR system.
Furthermore, to qualify for this benefit, government regulators require that providers can prove they are getting “meaningful use” out of their Behavioral Health EHR system.
In 2012, the HITECH regulations upped the game. It set a deadline of 2015 for physicians to become “meaningful users” of their EHR system. Failure to qualify means that providers could be subject to decreased Medicare and Medicaid payments.
Despite the fact that government agents seem to be “forcing” EHR systems on providers, doctors and administrators don’t see it that way. They are embracing EHR because they clearly see the cost-saving and profit-bolstering advantages these high-tech solutions bring — and the true bottom line is better outcomes for patients.
