Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that around 257,000 U.S physicians and health professionals’ payment will be deducted as they are not utilizing electronic health records (EMR) in their practices.

EMR is a process through which data is accumulated in the office of provider.  It offers complete medical and treatment history of the patient. It permits clinician to find which patient is left for preventative screening.  The main aim of EMR is to make the entire procedure of record keeping of patient much accurate, easier and comprehensive.

CMS informs that the chief goal of the government health agency is to improve the health care quality. Therefore, this action may compel doctors to make use of the electronic health records.

Additionally 200 hospitals would lose 1 percent of their Medicare payments in 2015 for not adequately using EMR. Thus Far, notifications has been sent to almost 257,000 medical care providers.

This is not the first time when the government cut the salary of the health workers.  Earlier, President Obama passed a Health law which state that $20 would be given to Medicare providers for this particular purpose.  The providers are requested to give incentives to health professionals who adequately make use of EMR.

Up till now, around 400,000 providers got the bonus Medicare payments as they properly installed EMR system. Unfortunately, the number of incentives given are relatively low when compare to the payment cut of physicians.