Health Policy Commons^™

Can Electronic Health Records Systems Support New Payment Methods For Health Centers?, Peter Shin, Feygele Jacobs, Jeffrey Barnes, James B. Welsh, Lisa Perry, Scott D. Morgan

Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative

This study assessed the feasibility and usefulness of combining electronic health record (EHR) data with federal cost report data for the purposes of: 1) quantifying the provision of enabling services; and 2) for use as the basis of community health center payment rate-setting. The study used EHR data derived from the Center for Primary Care Informatics to isolate enabling services and perform the end-to-end analysis that might be required to develop or evaluate reimbursement rates. The study revealed that data extracted from federal cost reports combined with data from the EHR fall short of providing the information required to reasonably …