Doctor, Doctor!

I went to my dermatologist’s office recently for a routine visit.

There were a lot of new people I had never seen in the office. There were a lot of new forms to complete….and what seemed like a thousand questions to answer.

Welcome to the new world of “EMR,” Electronic Medical Records. Welcome to step one of Obamacare.

“I feel less like a physician, more like an electronic record keeper,” lamented my good friend who practices medicine in the primary care arena. He complained about all of the new people he had to hire to keep up with the paperwork, the 20 percent increase in his overhead costs, and the fact he was now seeing fewer patients as his administrative time commitment and costs soared. The result? A thirty-day wait to make an appointment at a walk in clinic to see him and longer waits for those who walk in without an appointment.

I believe the desire to provide affordable health care to all citizens is a noble idea. The inability to come up with an effective implementation strategy is a well documented calamity. Last I checked, people went to a doctor for a medical opinion. Now, it’s a flawed system that spends greater time documenting the plight of the sick, rather than curing their illness.

This is yet another perfect example of the tail wagging the dog!