Doctors dish out $32,000 a year for heath IT

Entering the digital age offers plenty of potential for the healthcare industry like more access to care and less waiting time. But with the pros comes the con—and the implementation of health IT costs doctors more than $32,000 per year, according to Forbes.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act in 2009 provided $20 billion for physicians to implement EHR systems and other health IT endeavors. Unfortunately, this money didn’t last long, thanks it part to the cost of health IT expenses growing more than 40 percent since 2009.

Doctor-owned multi-specialty practices spent more than $32,500 in 2015 on new health IT, staff, maintenance and related costs, according to the analysis. The news isn’t so great for doctors, who have faced increasing health IT expenses while government funding ebbed.

“While technology plays a crucial role in helping healthcare organizations evolve to provide higher-quality, value-based care, this transition is becoming increasingly expensive,” Halee Fischer-Wright, MD, chief executive of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).

Analyzing the results from the MGMA, which reviewed responses from 3,100 practices, health IT costs in 2010 were about $23,000. By 2011, the cost per doctor had increased to $27,000, a 20 percent rise.

With costs rising at an alarming rate, doctors must have these costs at the top of their concerns. Surprisingly, according to a recent survey, health IT costs aren’t even in the top 10 of concerns for physicians. At number 17 on the list, health IT trailed compensation, work/life balance and physician burnout and related stress.