billing and coding is not a technical problem, per se. many public domain coding schemes exist, and there are lookup tables to map across each. lots of open sou

billing and coding is not a technical problem, per se. many public domain coding schemes exist, and there are lookup tables to map across each. lots of open source tools to help. the problem is redundant inefficient systems subsidized by your tax dollars. at hospitals i have seen literally 5 overlapping emr systems for a given service that require MDs to cut and paste data that is inaccurate, stale, and irrelevant to the context of the patient encounter. then they print out a pdf and mark it up with pen. THAT is the real record they use since the emr is so bad emrs were designed by programmers, not by clinical users. very poor interfaces. 10 clicks just to do anything. need a new feature? 2015 release is just around the corner. too bad we just spent billions of US tax dollars subsidizing emr systems that are DOA (many physicians i know put their records on box or google docs, hipaa be damned - just to get their work done!)