A recent nextgov blog post discusses a report by Conning Research and Consulting which found that the increased adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) by hospitals and medical practices may drive up the cost of medical liability insurance, at least in the early EHR adoption phase.  (Note: the full-text of the study is a bit pricey!) The researchers at Conning think that errors will increase in the initial EHR adoption phase which will drive up medical liability claims and the cost of defending them, thus driving up the cost of the healthcare providers professional liability insurance.  According to the report, more than 90% of hospitals and medical practices have not implemented EHRs that meet federal meaningful use standards.  (There are federal financial incentives in place to encourage the provider to adopt an EHR system but this system must follow these meaningful use standards to receive these incentive payments.)  According to the executive summary of the Conning report, as more and more providers adopt the new technology, coding data errors and software operability failures will occur as the systems are initially tested.  These errors should decrease over the long term, as insurers and providers monitor the new systems, the report states. Medical malpractice claims may also increase as patients gain easier access to their EHRs and discover that their provider may not have followed the treatment protocol that is embedded in an individual's electronic medical record.  And, the cost of defending against these claims will likely increase as more attorneys use electronic legal discovery and metadata.  The report's authors believe that these factors will drive up the cost of medical liability insurance at least on a temporary basis until the "bugs" and errors have been worked out of the EHR technology. Here's hoping that the projected increased cost of liability insurance is just temporary and is also somewhat off-set by the federal financial "encouragement" given to the provider who adopts the new technology.  If not, the consumer's medical insurance costs are likely to increase even more than usual to help compensate the healthcare providers for their increased professional liability insurance costs.