Maryland doctors got the first crack at a federal pilot program that reimburses physicians for ditching paper for electronic medical records.
“While the number of electronic health records around the country has proliferated, there?s been a reluctance among small- to medium-sized practices to embrace them. They were reluctant to take on the cost,” Mike Leavitt, U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, told a group of physicians Tuesday at Anne Arundel Medical Center.
Up to 100 practices will be eligible for as much as $58,000 per physician or $290,000 for a practice to cover the costs of buying, implementing, training and lost time in the transition to a new record-keeping system.
