Alaska Doctors Overwhelmed By New Federal Rules

Dr. Oliver Korshin, a 71-year-old ophthalmologist in Anchorage, is not happy about the federal government’s plan to have all physicians use electronic medical records or face a Medicare penalty. A few months ago when he applied for an exemption to the latest requirement, he had to pick an exemption category that fit.

“The only one that possibly applied to me was disaster,” Korshin says. “So I picked disaster and I described my disaster as old age and I submitted as my supporting document a copy of my passport.”

Korshin knew that argument probably wouldn’t work, but he still won’t make the switch. Starting next year, the federal government will penalize him – withholding 1 percent of his Medicare payments.

EHR,  ICD-10 and PQRS may sound like alphabet soup. But most doctors around the country know exactly what those acronyms stand for. They are programs championed by the federal government to improve quality and bring medicine into the electronic age. But in Alaska, where small medical practices and an aging physician workforce are common, the new requirements can be a heavy burden.

Korshin practices three days a week in the same small office in east Anchorage he’s had for three decades. Many of his patients have aged into their Medicare years right along with him.

Korshin has just one employee, a part-time nurse. And his lease runs out in four years, when he will be 75 and expects to retire.  He says for his tiny practice, an electronic medical records system would cost too much to set up and to maintain.

“No possible business model would endorse that kind of implementation in a practice situated like mine, it’s crazy,” he says.

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