Holding Physicians Accountable
Physicians can be held accountable for copy and paste by Medicare contractors and in malpractice lawsuits, but the most obvious way is at their place of work: A practice, hospital, or health system.
One physician has lost staff privileges, but more typically, coding clerks or colleagues talk to offending physicians and try to educate them on proper use of copy and paste.
Educational outreach, however, is often ineffective, said Robert Hirschtick, MD, a retired teaching physician at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois. “The physician may be directed to take an online course,” he said. “When they take the course, the goal is to get it done with, rather than to learn something new.”
Dr. Hirschtick’s articles on copy and paste, including one titled, “Sloppy and Paste,” have put him at the front lines of the debate. “This is an ethical issue,” he said in an interview. He agrees that some forms of copy and paste are permissible, but in many cases, “it is intellectually dishonest and potentially even plagiarism,” he said.
Dr. Hirschtick argues that copy-and-paste policies need more teeth. “Tying violations to compensation would be quite effective,” he said. “Even if physicians were rarely penalized, just knowing that it could happen to you might be enough. But I haven’t heard of anyone doing this.”
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.