BATON ROUGE (AP) — Nearly 240 small- to medium-sized medical practices around Louisiana applied for a federal pilot project to help them choose, set up and even pay for electronic medical record systems.
The nonprofit Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum says 200 will be notified in late March that they’ll get help choosing and learning how to use such a program. Half of them will also get extra federal money — up to $58,000 per doctor or $290,000 per practice over the next five years.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are assigning the groups at random.
Hurricane Gustav struck at the start of the sign-up period, but the nonprofit group says a total of 238 practices applied, and 204 were found eligible.
Twelve states are in the program, and Louisiana is among the first four.
