Meaningful Use Final Rules Released
Meaningful Use rules have been relaxed and offer providers more flexibility in selecting objectives.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final rules on meaningful use on July 13, 2010. In conjunction, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) issued the Standards and Certification for Electronic Health Records. The meaningful use rules were relaxed and also offer providers more flexibility in selecting objectives.
The final regulations are divided intotwo groups: (1.) a set of 15 core objectives that constitute a starting point for meaningful use of EHRs and, (2.) a separate menu of 10 additional objectives from which providers can choose any five to implement in 2011–2012 and defer the remaining five to the following year.
CMS summarized other changes in the final rules, including:
- An objective of providing condition-specific patient education resources for both eligible professionals and eligible hospitals,
- A definition of a hospital-based eligible professional as one who performs substantially all of his or her services in an inpatient hospital setting, or emergency room only, which conforms to the Continuing Extension Act of 2010; allowing hospital-based providers in ambulatory settings to qualify for incentive payments.
In order to qualify for meaningful use incentive payments, providers must use a certified meaningful use Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. At this time there are no EHR systems certified for meaningful use. The final meaningful use EHR certification standards have been released and the government is working to establish a group responsible for certifying systems. Providers should anticipate a list of certified meaningful use EHR systems to be released in the fall.
NextGen is currently certified by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) and will apply for meaningful use certification once it is available.
Providers must meet these objectives in order to qualify for financial incentives (Medicaid $63,750, Medicare $44,000). The incentives will be distributed during the next 10 years as authorized under the HITECH Act’s EHR incentive program.
In an effort to deliver on our mission, to be the Trusted, Local health resource, North Idaho Health Network will continue tracking and working to understand the meaningful use incentive program.
If you would like more information regarding meeting meaningful use and maximizing your incentive, please contact Nicole England at 208-666-3408 or by email at Nicole@nihn.net.
