When The New York Times reported last week that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had come up with a plan to distribute the VistA-Office EHR to doctors for free, a lot of people sat up and paid attention. After all, the high price tag for EHR systems has always been a major factor preventing doctors from adopting the technology. Now it turns out that, in this case at least, free doesn't actually mean free. On Wednesday, the department of Health and Human Services issued a correction on the story saying that the Times got it wrong. In actuality, the government will charge a $2,700 licensing fee for every physician in a practice who signs up for the software, which is not quite the same thing.
- see this story from Health IT World
PLUS: There are more details on the proposed national medical errors database in today's edition of The Washington Post. Story