FHIR Chat · Fun use for an EHR

Stream: social

Topic: Fun use for an EHR

Adam Flinton (Jan 29 2020 at 07:40):

Ah the joys of drug pushing.....
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/27/practice-fusion-backed-by-top-vcs-before-selling-in-2018-pushed-doctors-to-prescribe-opioids-in-kickback-scheme/

"According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Practice Fusion solicited and received pay from an (unnamed for now) major opioid company in exchange for using its EHR software to influence doctors in the act of prescribing opioid pain medications.

Specifically, according to court documents released earlier today by federal prosecutors in Vermont, Practice Fusion solicited a nearly $1 million payment from the opioid company, promising that in exchange it would create alerts in its software that would cause physicians to write more prescriptions for extended release opioids than were medically needed"

Dave deBronkart (Jan 29 2020 at 14:43):

Yeah, that's a pretty impressive fine - $145 million! I sincerely hope AllScripts is saying "Holy crap, how did this happen??" and lawyering up to sue people ... some were saying in Twitter yesterday that the issue continued for some time after the AllScripts acquisition, which would be natural if the buyer had no clue.

I don't know if anything could be more corrupt in medicine than taking bribes and kickbacks to jigger the CDS software to more frequently recommend a product - especially opioids!!! Special room in Hell for those people, I imagine. Sigh. And imagine the docs who earnestly trusted the module and used it on their patients.