Wal-Mart Says Will Sell E-Records to Doctors

From Medscape (you may have to log-in)

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) Mar 11 - Wal-Mart Inc, which has moved into low-cost healthcare with walk-in clinics and cheap prescriptions, said on Wednesday its Sam's Club unit would sell a package including software and Dell computers directly to doctors for electronic medical records."

Sounds good right. After all Wal-Mart has $4 prescriptions.

But check out the cost: "Medical software company eClinicalworks will offer the software program, Koehler said. She said the package would cost the first doctor in a practice about $25,000, with each additional user costing around $10,000."

No independent or small practice should pay that much for a medical record system. I think that EMR is one of the greatest scams around. Personally, I use Soapware which has worked reliably for the past 2 1/2 years without a single lost or problem record. True Soapware has gone up in price - from $400 to $1200 a year, but it's still nearly 20+ times cheaper. Even cheaper, if you don't mind your EMR being completely on the internet, Office Ally offers an EMR for $24.95 a month. A colleague of mine uses it and thinks it's great.

Now the cost of the Wal-Mart/Sam's Club EMR does include hardware, software, and installation, but unless the hardware is worth about $23,000, I am dubious about this system.

Here's your authrorization!

I don't want to ruin the clinical/scientific spirit of the blog by weighing it down with the daily idiocy of medical practice (I'm considering making a separate blog for that, let me know what you think), but I have to vent.

I have prescribed sensipar for a patient with primary hyperparathyroidism who was not a surgical candidate. I've prescibed it for 3 days a week (in a rather overcautious way perhaps to avoid potential hypocalcemia), and now want to increase the dosing to every other day. I originally filled out an authorization for the 3 day a week dosing and it was approved. Now the insurance company wants me to fill out a completely new authorization form for this minor change in dose frequency.

Here is My authorization:

• 12 years of Grade School
• 4 years towards a Bachelor of Science Degree
• Qualifiying MCAT scores
• 4 Years of Medical School
• 3 USMLE exams
• 3 years of Internal Medicine Residency
• Board Certification in Internal Medicine
• 2 years Endocrinology fellowship (where I learned how to spell sensipar)
• Board Certification in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism
• Numerous awards, Grand Rounds, etc.

In other words I really don't need to fill out any G-- D--- authorization, because I make the decisions not these zeros....

I have a work around which I'll post separately. When you've worked at LAC you know how to get around anything.

Endcorine Bailout!

You knew it was coming - a piece of the bailout may be going to Endocrinologists. Yes even the lowly Endocrinologist and other physicians may be able to benefit from the Multi-billion dollar bonanza. (What you may not have known is that there is a bottomless pit of money hidden beneath the Treasury Building. Get out your shovels!)

Read more here.