Letters

Setting record straight on Dr. Vladimir Filatov

I was pleased to read that Dr. Vladimir Filatov will be formally inducted into the Ophthalmology Hall of Fame. In 2011, I was an invited speaker at a glaucoma conference at the ophthalmic institution that is named after him: The Filatov Eye Institute in Odesa, Ukraine.

Being an American of Ukrainian descent, I was privileged to give my glaucoma presentation at this conference in Ukrainian.

Dr. Filatov was born in Ukraine. Although he trained in Moscow, he returned to Ukraine to practice ophthalmology and, eventually, became the director of the institute that now bears his name.

Because of this, I was disappointed to see Dr. Filatov listed as a Russian ophthalmologist. At this very moment, Ukraine is struggling to maintain its freedom and dignity as Russian forces annex Crimea and threaten Ukraine’s mainland.

Although ex-KGB dictators like Vladimir Putin like to distort the facts, Ukrainians are not Russians. I believe that Dr. Filatov, who spent his career practicing ophthalmology in Ukraine, would probably prefer to be called a Ukrainian ophthalmologist.
Leonid Skorin, Jr., DO, OD, MS, Albert Lea, Minn.

Clearing up a point: MU2 and patient e-mails

With regard to Dr. Larry Patterson’s January “Viewpoint” (“EHR and MU2: Bait and switch?”), in which he stated that Meaningful Use stage 2 will require practices obtain e-mails from 50% of their patients: Almost immediately after the article appeared, I started getting e-mails from clients about this, and I’ve continued to get questions. I read the article and was confused about his comments about practices being required to acquire e-mails, as well as being required “to pay for a portal.”

After Dr. Patterson and I spoke on the phone, I think I understand his comments much better and can help clear up any confusion your readers might have on this topic.

Dr. Patterson’s comment that practices would be required to get e-mails from 50% of their patients is implied, though not actually stated in any measure. Nothing in the stage 2 rules explicitly requires practices to capture patients’ e-mail addresses, although Core Measure 7, “Patient Electronic Access” does require practices to provide electronic access to health information.

Dr. Patterson and I agreed that this implicit requirement is brought about by the way most EHR portals function, whether the vendor uses a third-party portal service or develops its own. That is because patient notices about new portal accounts, updated data being sent to the portal and similar scenarios can only occur via e-mail.

Dr. Patterson agreed that his wording might have more clearly stated this requirement was implicit rather than explicit, and that some portals do not require e-mails to function properly. Even though this is an implicit requirement, I certainly agree that most practices will need to acquire e-mail addresses from their patients.

He also acknowledged that not all EHR vendors charge an additional fee for all portals, but we agreed that many vendors in ophthalmology do so.

The bigger concern that Dr. Patterson and I share is this requirement in Core Measure 7: “More than 5% of all unique patients seen by the EP [eligible professional] during the EHR reporting period (or their authorized representatives) view, download, or transmit to a third party their health information.” This requirement that providers must now get their patients to act in some way is onerous and might be nearly impossible for most ophthalmology practices, with their largely geriatric patient base, to achieve.
Jeff Grant, President, HCMA Inc., Shell, Wyo

OM