Baptist Health South Florida reports it’s making good progress in its efforts to subsidize doctors in its area to convert to electronic health records so that Baptist hospitals and the doctors can easily share data about patients.

Baptist spokeswoman Roymi Membiela said the system is contributing 85 percent of the doctors’ costs -- the maximum allowed for electronic records under an exception to the Stark Law, the federal anti-kickback statute intended to stop hospitals from paying doctors to get patients to its facilities. That exception expires Dec. 31, 2013, Membiela said.

Membiela said five companies are providing the software for the electronic records, including IOS Health Systems, based in Kendall. The latest software company to contract with Baptist is CareCloud, also based in Miami.

CareCloud also recently announced it has contracted with Miami Children’s Hospital to provide billing and collections software to 200 doctors in the hospital’s network.

-- John Dorschner, The Miami Herald