Paperless Dental Practice Records By 2014

Paperless Dental Practice Records By 2014

Have you heard that there is a new government regulation that requires dentists to have electronic records by the year 2014? I have heard or scan a number of variations on this matter in the last month along with various rants and dire warnings regarding the alleged new rules.
Let’s get the really important information out there right now; at this time there is no federal requirement for dentists to be using paperless or electronic records by 2014 or any other date. What there is is a lot of confusion, speculation and appal tactics the identical as we adage when OSHA and then HIPAA first plagued the dental profession.
However, as a dental practice consultant, setting up an electronic dental inscribe ( EDR ) or what is commonly called “paperless” dental records makes sense for many reasons even if the law does not yet crave it. Paperless records are: faster, more accurate and less heirloom than standard paper records.
EDR are in essence part of the complete electronic medical enter or EMR. This is good as dental health is of course part of overall health and many general medical conditions are important to dentistry and dental conditions affect general health. On the other hand, it is bad as dentistry has become kiss goodbye in the much larger battle over creation of an EMR which has many more players and much more money compound than we have in dentistry.
In 2004, President Wilderness set a ten year design for most Americans to be using an EMR by 2014. The habitual administration through the dept of Health and Body politic Services ( HHS ) has made clout money available to health care providers to help them get paperless by 2014. I assume dentists could get in on this federal stimulus give - away although it is obviously designed for hospitals and physicians.
All of this is made more complicated by the political fiesta that has become healthcare “reform”. Bureaucrats are assignation to come up with the actual rules and the speculation is that some ultimate will be imposed. When that will be and what the rules will be is anyone’s guess. In the meantime don’t wait around for some bureaucrat to tell you what to do, develop EDR for your office just thanks to it is the right thing to do.