Abstract
The medical profession is increasingly dependent upon electronic health records. Along
with documented benefits, a number of potential ethical abuses have been outlined.
Herein, we describe an ethical abuse that has received almost no attention, namely
falsified medical records. We present three cases in which the medical record cited
facts from history that were not elicited and findings from physical examination that
was not performed. This is fraud. Prepopulated templates were almost certainly responsible.
If a template is used, it must begin free of results–a skeleton onto which flesh is
placed. If coders and third-party payers insist on having information than health
care providers think relevant, then we, as a profession should “push back,” but a
template that has been prepopulated puts fraudulent data into electronic health record,
seriously damaging physician integrity.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 19, 2019
Accepted:
March 30,
2019
Received:
March 15,
2019
Footnotes
Reprints are not available.
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
