North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System will offer as much as $40,000 to each of about 7,000 affiliated physicians over a five-year period to adopt EMRs--with a catch. Doctors who install EMRs that can communicate with North Shore facilities in the New York City area are eligible for 50 percent subsidies from the health system. But those physicians willing to share de-identified clinical data with North Shore can receive subsidies of 85 percent.
Under HHS exemptions to the Stark physician self-referral and Medicare anti-kickback rules, hospitals may cover up to 85 percent of the cost of software and training to outfit physician offices with EMR systems. The North Shore program, the New York Times reports, is believed to be the largest application of the Stark EMR exemption to date.
North Shore has chosen Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions as the EMR software vendor for affiliated practices, and has contracted with Dell to provide tablet PCs for the program, although the Stark exemption does not apply to computer hardware. It's been a really good week for Chicago-based Allscripts, which on Tuesday announced a similar deal with Baptist Memorial Health Care in Memphis, Tenn. Allscripts also is expanding its relationship with West Penn Allegheny Health System in Pittsburgh.
For further information:
- see this New York Times story (reg. req.)
- read the Allscripts press release on the Baptist deal
- read the Allscripts-West Penn Allegheny press release