The Role of the EHR in Documentation Time

In our study after hours documentation time was 1.8 hours in practices where the physician had an EHR and about 1.1 hours in those that didn't. There's been some cross national studies for instance that find that outpatient notes in Epic are about four times longer in the US compared to other countries. So I do think that various aspects of our billing system, of our financing system probably contribute. And it's not just a question of actually entering the bill. It's the fact that a lot of our documentation is billing based.