The state of Medicare: Local doctors, patients concerned
Doctors, advocates and patients voiced their concerns about physician shortages and upcoming changes to
"The purpose of the meeting is really preserving
Doctors were required to start recording clinical data for
Vitarello said the electronic health record requirements eat away at patients' time.
"What I see and hear is that doctors are spending more time in front of their computers, and not [with] their patients," he said.
About 70 percent of Vitarello's patients at
"I want to do everything I can to help these doctors, because we need them," Otis said.
Dr.
"There was a ton of fluff in there that you had to figure out what was important," he said.
The record requirements also distanced him from his patients, he said, and slowed the recordkeeping and examination processes.
"Patients didn't like if you typed while you were talking," he said.
Rifkin retired in 2015, about a year after his practice started using electronic health records.
"I think we are really, finally, getting on the right track," she told the group of doctors, patients and advocates during her presentation Wednesday.
Connors mentioned that younger staff members and interns are used to computers and therefore more receptive to electronic records. Doctors in the audience muttered in agreement.
The new
Electronic health records "should not interfere with your practice," she said.
Connors said the federal office is especially interested in hearing from doctors from small practices and rural areas.
"We want to do as much as we can to engage those physicians," she said.
But, some attendees said, recruiting doctors and keeping them in rural areas and western
Gene Ransom III is chief executive officer of MedChi, the
"I think the workforce issue is serious," he said. "We have a shortage of physicians, and that's already been documented."
He said the shortage is worse in
A 2007 Maryland Physician Workforce Study, sponsored by MedChi and the
Residents trained at
Some doctors and local advocates were divided over whether many or few local physicians had decided to stop accepting new
"You will find a lot of doctors who are not taking new
Ransom said on a statewide level, he had not yet seen a large number of doctors stop taking new
According to Dr.
"We really only recently began to keep very good information in respect to
As of the end of April, there were 103 healthcare providers at family medicine practices in
Of 22 internal medicine practitioners in
In 2013,
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