Healthcare IT Vendors Respond To Reports Of "Information Blocking"

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

HIT vendors were called out last month by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) for obstructive practices — which seems to have contributed to a response.

The agency report detailed ways in which vendors were slowing interoperability by blocking the flow of information (with fees, intentionally incompatible systems, and holding data “hostage”). It also detailed a plan of action to address the issue including new certification requirements, transparency obligations, and working with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to coordinate payment incentives that further encourage interoperability (a goal even patients support).

Vendor Response

Modern Healthcare has reported vendors have responded after years of charging providers with interface fees and other costs around interoperability.

Just before HIMSS15, athenahealth leaked an announcement that it would permanently absorb customer costs for interoperability. Prior to that, Cerner CEO Neal Patterson pledged that his company would take on its customers’ costs for participation in the CommonWell Health Alliance through 2017. Both athenahealth and Cerner are members of the two-year-old, not-for-profit alliance and are joined in their pledge by two other founding members.

Beyond CommonWell

Epic, not a part of CommonWell, has also joined in the movement away from information blocking and announced that it is dropping fees it’s been charging its customers for data transfers to non-Epic entities through its “Care Elsewhere” module. CEO Judy Faulkner has said that they will not begin charging until at least 2020.

Prior to the announcement, Epic (one of the most well-known vendors accused of information blocking) was charging providers and healthcare organizations $.20 for clinical messages and $2.35 per patient, per year for inbound messages from non-Epic users. Faulker said they “thought it was cheaper,” but customers were still annoyed.

Reports Of Information Blocking

The ONC has stated that it received about 60 unsolicited reports of information blocking in 2014, including practices such as:

• excessive sharing costs
• a lack of contract transparency for buyers
• vendors making it difficult to download and share information between their internal systems and those of competitors
• collusion between providers and vendors to slow and prevent information from flowing to other providers and healthcare systems