Physicians may not be attaining meaningful use in the droves government officials may have envisioned when they launched the incentive program, but experts say this is not necessarily a problem.

David Kibbe, a senior advisor at the American Academy of Family Physicians, recently wrote on KevinMD that the original idea behind the incentive program was to get rapid adoption in the first year. As 2011 is winding to a close, it is clear that the percentages of doctors who have implemented EHR systems are lower than desired.

However, this does not mean that physicians are not interested in the benefits of EHRs or participating in the incentive program. Kibbe wrote that there are many considerations practices need to make before moving toward an electronic system. Regardless, the federal program has at least turned information technology into a priority for the healthcare system.

At this point, many physicians recognize that they will need to transition to EHRs at some time. Over the long term, it won't matter much whether physicians adopted the technology in 2011 or 2012.

Still, it may be in the best interest of physicians to adopt EHRs sooner rather than later. Those who wait until after 2012 will not be eligible for the full incentive payments.