Settlement Details EHR Moves to Influence Clinicians—Maybe You—to Prescribe Opioids

In weighing whether an opioid prescription was warranted for a given patient, it’s likely that you were guided one way or the other by your electronic health record system. If that system was linked to the $145 million settlement levied against Allscripts-owned Practice Fusion by the Department of Justice, you may have been duped into thinking writing for an opioid was warranted when it might not have been. Given that Practice Fusion describes its offerings as well-suited for use in cardiology, dermatology, physical therapy, mental health, internal medicine, and other high-volume settings, the risk could be great. The DOJ just released specific details of the case, in which Practice Fusion received a million dollar kickback from an opioid manufacture in return for allowing the manufacturer to rig EHR clinical decision support alerts encouraging opioid prescriptions that did not meet current prescribing guidelines; seeking agreements with drug companies that would pay Practice Fusion to influence clinical decision support alerts to increase sales; and obtaining certification from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology fraudulently, among other charges. Under the settlement, Practice Fusion must make changes in its compliance practices, obtain independent oversight, report evidence of kickback violations by other EHR vendors, and make details of their unlawful conduct available to the public on a website. In addition, the oversight organization has to approve any sponsored CDS rules before they are implemented.