Copy & Paste is not okay? Say what???

“Seventy-four to 90 percent of physicians use the copy/paste function in their EHRs, and between 20 to 78 percent of physician notes are copied text, according to a September AHIMA report.”

“It’s become such a compliance and payment problem that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius together with Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter last year to industry medical groups underscoring the seriousness of doctors “gaming the system, possibly to obtain payments to which they are not entitled.”

We have spent a lot of time educating our students and MTs about the deadliness of the copy/paste function in medical transcription. There can be serious errors made and the veteran healthcare documentation specialist has learned this over the last decade or two. However, it is apparently common to see this going on in the EHR. Take a look …

EHR copy and paste? Better think twice
Healthcare IT News
Who would have thought that something so simple as copy and paste could have such serious consequences? Speaking at the MGMA annual conference in San Diego, Diana Warner, director at AHIMA, confirmed the seriousness of inappropriately using copy and paste functions in electronic health records. And the government agrees — it’s no laughing matter.