EHR Contracts Distance vendors from Responsibility or Liability

EHR contracts contain an increasing array of complicating structures and dense terms that offer fewer and fewer commitments to your practice. The problematic terms include:

Broad disclaimers further distance EHR vendors from any responsibility or liability that may result from the use of their products regardless of the cause:

Many contracts offer no warranties and sell the products “as is.” Thereby, they have no obligation to fix problems or maintain product relevancy. For example, a disclaimer that the product is offered with no representation of fitness for any specific purpose provides little to compel a vendor to address an issue or problem.

Many contracts include practice indemnification of the software vendor for a variety of issues. For example, some contracts do not warrant the clinical content or the ability of the software to record information, but pass risk of any problems to the practice through broad indemnity clauses. On a similar note, some business associate agreements have the practice indemnifying the business associate for inappropriate disclosures committed by the business associate.

A number of EHR vendors will not commit to support HIPAA Security or Privacy standards or Certified EHR status.

Read the rest.