Behavioral health providers use electronic health records (EHRs) at lower rates compared to physical health providers. Low EHR adoption rates create barriers to greater clinical integration between physical and behavioral health providers, and may be a function of behavioral health providers being left out of federal efforts to digitize and modernize health records, such as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009, and challenges related to sharing patient data that is subject to federal privacy protections related to substance use disorder.
This presentation provided background on how states leveraged HITECH’s Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive payments to promote the meaningful use of EHRs among physical health providers. It also compared rates of EHR adoption between behavioral and physical health providers.