Government health monitoring is causing physicians to leave the medical practice

The practice of medicine has become frustrating and painful, thanks to Congress.

Once upon a time, nothing in the exam room was more important than the patient. Using years of training and experience, your doctor would listen carefully as you shared the reasons why you were there. But today, the exam room has a distracting intruder. Your doctor’s eyes and attention are too often focused on a computer screen — the government-mandated electronic health record (EHR).

Third parties — government agencies, health plans and health IT technology companies — are using the EHR to disrupt and exploit the patient-physician relationship. To get paid, doctors must spend long hours clicking boxes in the EHR and sharing patient data...