Writing in MedPage Today, primary care physician Fred Pelzman describes the end-of-day burden of closing patient notes in the electronic health record (EHR). After documenting the visit, he is prompted to verify Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) codes—diagnosis codes used by Medicare and insurers to adjust payments based on how sick a patient is. These codes often relate to conditions managed by specialists, not by the primary care physician.
Pelzman argues that this annual verification adds significant clerical work and often feels like a mere formality when the conditions are not being actively treated in the visit. He notes that the responsibility falls on primary care doctors to tell insurers about conditions such as amputations or hemodialysis, even though the evidence is already in the patient's chart and claims data.
He hopes AI could eventually mine EHRs, claims, pharmacy records, and radiology reports to calculate risk scores more accurately and automatically, reducing the need for manual clicks. Because this is a single opinion piece, there are no other sources to compare; the argument is presented without independent data or counterarguments.