Appendix D3 Medical Practice Followup Letter REV 9.17.10

Draft – FOLLOWUP Letter to Physician Practices

PRINTED ON ONC LETTERHEAD

[PRACTICE NAME]

[ADDRESS]

[CITY][STATE][ZIP]

[DATE]

Dear Practice Manager:

We have been trying to reach you because your participation is critical to a very important study. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is conducting a study to better understand the likely role that the Health Information Technology Act may play in fostering patient-centered medical care. Your practice’s participation is important whether or not you are using electronic health records – in order to get a complete representation, we need to hear the views of patients from practices with different operational procedures.

ONC has contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, an independent research company, to conduct a survey and focus groups with patients from 84 randomly selected primary care practices in four states, and your practice represents other primary care practices in your state. A Mathematica representative will continue to call you in the coming week to describe the study in more detail, answer any questions you may have, and request your practice’s participation. If you prefer, please contact Karen Bogen, the Mathematica Survey Director, at 617-674-8355 or by email at kbogen@mathematica-mpr.com. Practices that agree to participate in the study will receive $100.

Participation will involve allowing a Mathematica representative to visit your practice for one to two days, talk with patients in the waiting room about the study, and invite them to complete a 15-minute self-administered questionnaire or to join a 90-minute discussion group. Patients who participate in the survey or discussion groups will receive a gift card ($10 for the survey and $40 for the discussion group). The information gathered from the surveys and discussion groups will be kept private to the extent to which law allows and used for research purposes only; no individual responses will be shared outside the research team and only aggregated responses will be reported.

Enclosed is a fact sheet that provides more information about the study and what your practice’s participation will involve. If you have any further questions about the study, your rights as a study site, or your patients’ rights as study participants, please contact Karen Bogen, as noted above.

We appreciate your considering this request.

Sincerely,

Privacy Officer: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0990-NEW and expires XX-XX-20XX. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 15 minutes per response, including the time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather the data needed, and complete and review the information collection. If you have comments concerning the accuracy of the time estimate(s) or suggestions for improving this form, please write to: Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Ave. SW, Suite 729-D, Washington, DC 20201.

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