Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Meaningful Use

Please click on the links (below) to take you to related items:

Resources
Summaries of Regulations
Comment Letters 

 

Resources for the EHR Incentive Programs

Registration for the EHR Incentive Programs Begins on January 3, 2011
Beginning January 3, 2011, registration will be available for eligible professionals who wish to participate in the Medicare EHR incentive program.  On January 3, registration in the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program will also be available in Alaska, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.  In February, registration will open in California, Missouri, and North Dakota.  Other states likely will launch their Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs during the spring and summer of 2011.  

Certified Health IT Product List

The ONC Certified HIT Product List (CHPL) is a comprehensive list of Complete EHRs and EHR Modules that have been tested and certified by an ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ATCB) under the Temporary Certification Program. CMS will only grant and accept reporting numbers from the EHR technologies on the ONC-Certified Health IT Product List. These reporting numbers are required for attestation under the EHR (“meaningful use”) incentives programs.
 
Factsheets on the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs

Learn more about the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs from these compilations (includes registration details, incentive payments, meaningful use criteria etc.)

1. Medicare EHR Incentive Program  
2. Medicaid EHR Incentive Program

Stage 1 Meaningful Use Criteria

Eligible Professionals must report on 20 - 25 meaningful use objectives to qualify for an incentive payments. There are fifteen core objectives that are required. The additional five objectives may be chosen from the list of 10 menu set objectives (you will note not all are applicable to your practice). The table (link above) from the American Medical Association (AMA) includes the meaningful use objectives, how to report them, and exemption criteria for reporting them.

Clinical Quality Measures (CQMs)

Eligible professionals must report from the table of 44 clinical quality measures, which includes, 3 Core, 3 Alternate Core, and 38 additional CQMs. This table from the American Medical Association contains the CQMs and guidelines on how to report them.

Update: HHS Announces Additional Time to Meet Stage 2 Criteria

On December 1st, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it will delay Stage 2 of the Medicare/ Medicaid electronic health records (EHR) incentive program from 2013 to 2014 for physicians that attest they meet Stage 1 Meaningful Use reporting requirements (listed above) in 2011. This only applies to physicians that attest they meet Stage 1 Meaningful Use criteria in 2011. Physicians who being participation in 2012 and attest to meet meaningful use requirements in 2012 for the first time are still expected to meet Stage 2 requirements in 2014.

A snap shot of important dates for the EHR Incentive

	Payment Year
1st Payment Year	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
2011	Stage 1	Stage 1	Stage 1	Stage 2	TBD
2012		Stage 1	Stage 1	Stage 2	TBD
2013			Stage 1	Stage 1	TBD
2014				Stage 1	TBD

Summaries of Regulations

Final Rule for the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program
On July 28, 2010, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final rule for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR programs.

Proposed Rule for the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program

Enacted on February 17, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) under the Health Information for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) provision established payments for eligible professionals (EP) and eligible hospitals that meaningfully use EHRs. In order to leverage the definition of “meaningful use” and the guidelines required for EPs and eligible hospitals to prove that they are meaningful uses of EHR, on December 30, 2009 CMS released a proposed rule for the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program and the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC) released the interim final rule on the specification and certification criteria for EHR.

Comment Letters 

 

The Academy Comments on the Proposed Meaningful Use Stage 2 Criteria

On February 25, 2011, we offered feedback on the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Policy Committee’s proposed meaningful use Stage 2 criteria. In our letter, we urged the HIT Policy Committee to allow for greater flexibility in the requirements to increase physicians’ adoption rates for EHRs. We thank the Medical Informatics Committee for reviewing the proposed criteria and for their work in drafting the letter.

Academy’s Comment Letter on the Proposed Rule for the EHR Incentive Program

On March 10, 2010 the Academy submitted a comment letter to CMS on the proposed rule for meaningful use.  

Academy's Comment Letter on the Proposed rule for the Certification Programs for Health Information Technology (HIT)On March 30,2010, we sent a letter to the ONC recommending that they require the ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB) to certify and test EHRs' capabilities to be integrated into EHRs from other vendors, post a frequently updated list of "de-certified" EHRs on the ONC website, limit the number of ONC-ATCBs to five and much more. 

 
Sign on Comment Letter on the Definition of Meaningful Use of EHR  
The Academy in addition to other specialty societies sent a letter with recommendations for defining and demonstrating the meaningful use of Electronic Health Records (EHR).

Page Last Updated on March 1, 2011