Findings from a study published in the July issue of JAMA Internal Medicine suggest that displaying Medicare allowable fees for inpatient laboratory tests in electronic health records (EHRs) may not significantly impact overall clinician ordering behavior or associated fees. 

The research team reviewed prospective data on 142,921 hospital admissions (98,529 patients) from three centers and found no significant changes in overall test ordering behavior or associated fees after implementation of an intervention in which Medicare allowable fees were randomly displayed in the EHR. However, an exploratory subset analyses noted small but significant differences in tests ordered per patient-day based on patient intensive care unit stay and magnitude of associated fees. Learn more...