WASHINGTON — The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) may relax some of its rules for implementing Meaningful Use requirements, the agency announced Thursday.
“Meaningful Use” refers to provisions in the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which authorized incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid to clinicians and hospitals that use electronic health records (EHRs) in a meaningful way to significantly improve clinical care.
Meaningful Use requirements are divided into three different stages. Stages 1 and 2 criteria aim to capture and share data and to advance clinical processes, respectively. Stage 3 aims to improve clinical outcomes through the use of EHRs.
CMS is considering making the following changes via a new rule, Patrick Conway, MD, deputy administrator for innovation and quality and chief medical officer at CMS, said in a blog post:
- Realigning hospital electronic health record (EHR) reporting periods to the calendar year to allow eligible hospitals more time to incorporate 2014 Edition software into their workflows and to better align with other CMS quality programs.
- Modifying other aspects of the program to match long-term goals, reduce complexity, and lessen providers’ reporting burdens.
- Shortening the EHR reporting period in 2015 to 90 days to accommodate these changes.
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“The new rule, expected this spring, would be intended to be responsive to provider concerns about software implementation, information exchange readiness, and other related concerns in 2015,” Conway wrote. “It would also be intended to propose changes reflective of developments in the industry and progress toward program goals achieved since the program began in 2011.”
He added that this rule is separate from a proposed rule of Stage 3 of Meaningful Use, which is expected out in early March. “CMS intends to limit the scope of the Stage 3 proposed rule to the requirements and criteria for meaningful use in 2017 and subsequent years.”
The American Medical Association (AMA) said in a statement that it was pleased with the CMS proposal.
“We are eager to see the proposed rule as we have been working with CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) offering solutions to improve the incentive program for quite some time,” said AMA president-elect Steven Stack, MD. “EHRs are intended to help physicians improve care for their patients but, unfortunately, today’s EHR certification standards and the stringent requirements of the Meaningful Use program do not support that goal and decrease efficiency.”
“We hope the new rule will be issued expediently to provide the flexibility needed to allow more physicians to successfully participate in the Meaningful Use program and better align Meaningful Use with other quality reporting programs such as the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and the Value-Based Modifier (VBM),” he continued.
“Additionally, we hope ONC will address problems with interoperability and support technologies that provide the ability for information to be exchanged, incorporated, and presented to a physician in a contextual and meaningful manner.”
The AMA and other groups recently expressed their displeasure when CMS announced that it would be docking the Medicare reimbursement of more than 257,000 physicians by 1% because they failed to meet certain Meaningful Use criteria.
Date: January 30, 2015