By 2015, medical practices, including hospitals and physicians offices without electronic records will be financially penalized by receiving a lesser Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rate. There are also other considerations on the table that will make it more difficult for medical practices without EMR to compete. Many pharmacies will give preferential treatment and pricing to prescription that come in electronically.

Also the major medical insurance companies are promising faster payments and less manual record keeping to providers that use electronic medical records. Fortunately EMR vendors began years ago coming up with protocols that will allow partner companies to communicate in a secure fashion whether they be; hospitals, physicians, insurers or others.