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If you’re a healthcare provider hoping to snag some federal money through the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ electronic health records incentive program, you’ll want to be mindful of some important upcoming deadlines to make sure your practice is eligible to receive an incentive payment for 2011.

Feb. 29, 2012 – Eligible professionals have until to register and prove that they meet meaningful use requirements to receive an incentive payment for calendar year 2011 through the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program Registration and Attestation System.

Feb. 29, 20121 – Also the deadline for eligible professional to submit any pending Medicare Part B claims from calendar year 2011. CMS gives providers a window of 60 days after Dec. 31, 2011, to process all pending Medicare claims. This means that providers have 60 days in 2012 to submit claims for allowed charges that were incurred in 2011.

MU Medicare EHR incentive payments to eligible professionals are based on 75 percent of the Part B allowed charges for covered professional services provided by the participating professional during the entire payment year.

According to CMS, incentive payments for the Medicare EHR incentive program will be made approximately four to eight weeks after providers demonstrate that they have met the meaningful use standards of certified EHR technology.

However, eligible providers will not receive incentive payments within that timeframe if they have not yet met the threshold for allowed charges for covered professional services furnished by the provider during the year. If providers do not meet the $24,000 threshold in Part B allowed charges by the end of calendar year 2011, CMS said it expects to issue incentive payments for eligible providers in April 2012 for 75 percent of the provider’s Part B charges from 2011.

Medicaid Incentives – Check with your state. For providers participating in the Medicaid EHR incentive program, those incentives will be issued by individual states, so the timing of payments will vary according to state. CMS advises professionals to contact their state Medicaid agency for more details about time of payment.

Registration Process for Group Practices Just Got Easier

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it will implement protocols that allow eligible professionals (EPs) to designate a third-party (such as a practice administrator) to register and attest for them as part of the EHR meaningful use incentive program. EPs were not  allowed to designate a practice manager or any other person to register in their place. However, until CMS implements this new group practice “functionality,” each EP should register himself or herself separately for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs.

The numbers you are about to see are all true…As of the end of 2011

1. 123,921 Eligible Professionals have registered for EHR Incentives, 15,255 have successfully attested to meaningful use in the Medicare program.
2. 3,077 Eligible Hospitals have registered EHR Incentives and 604 of those have successfully attested to meaningful use.
3. $2,533,689,145 has been paid out in Medicare and Medicaid Incentives.
4. 277 hospitals have received payments under both Medicare and Medicaid and of those 12 were CAHs.
5. 22% of eligible professionals that have been paid EHR incentives are Family Practitioners and 20% are Internal Medicine.
6. 41 States Medicaid programs were open for registration.  Two additional States launched in January of 2012.
7. More than 1500 EHR products have been certified by ONC-ATCBs.

Why aren’t you involved in the technology revolution

The Department of Health and Human Services has moved the start date for Stage 2 of the electronic health records meaningful use program from 2013 to 2014.

The initial HHS announcement did not make clear which providers were eligible to wait until 2014. The department clarified its position to Health Data Management.
Federal officials this summer had voiced support for a proposal to delay Stage 2 one year to 2014 for providers who attest to Stage 1 in 2011. The rationale was that Stage 1 pioneers who attest in 2011 should not be penalized by tight time frames next summer for getting ready for Stage 2. Now, that proposal is adopted, and since providers who begin Stage 1 attestation in 2012 could wait until 2014 to start Stage 2, now everyone will start Stage 2 in 2014. Pioneer providers in 2011, however, can get three years of Stage 1 incentive payments. Following is a statement from HHS explaining the decision:
“Input from the vendor community and the provider community makes clear that the current schedule for compliance with stage 2 meaningful use objectives in 2013 poses a nearly insurmountable timing challenge for those who attest to meaningful use in 2011. With the anticipated release of the final rule for stage 2 in June, 2012, the current timetable would require EHR vendors to design, develop, and release new functionality, and for eligible hospitals to upgrade, implement and begin using the new functionality by the beginning of the reporting year in October of 2012.

“In response to significant input on this matter from multiple stakeholders, expert testimony, and countless hours of review, analysis and deliberation, HHS publicly announced its intention to delay the start of Stage 2 of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs for a period of one year for those first attesting to meaningful use in 2011. We intend to propose such a delay in the Stage 2 meaningful use Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which is scheduled to be published in February 2012. Not only do we believe that this will give vendors added time to develop certified EHR technologies for Stage 2, we also believe this delay will give providers additional time to implement new software and meet the new challenges of Stage 2. We also intend to propose maintaining the current expectation for those first attesting to meaningful use in 2012, so that all providers attesting to meaningful use in 2011 or 2012 will begin Stage 2 in 2014.

“Perhaps most importantly, we want to provide an added incentive for providers attesting to meaningful use in 2011. We encourage any providers who have been waiting until 2012 to attest to Stage 1 meaningful use now. Under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, providers who attest early receive greater incentives. And now those providers who first attest in 2011 can get three payment years for meeting the Stage 1 expectations, while those first attesting in 2012 can only get two payment years under Stage 1 criteria.”

American Hospital Association President Rich Umbdenstock applauded the HHS decision:
“America’s hospitals welcome today’s announcement that HHS intends to delay the start of Stage 2 meaningful use. Hospitals are committed to implementing electronic health records to support high quality patient care, but the rushed timelines and complex regulatory requirements of meaningful use have made the process difficult. While the flow of meaningful use incentives to date has been slow, the delay will better align EHR adoption policy with market realities, such as limited vendor capacity to work with providers. Giving hospitals another year to implement these changes before the bar is raised on the meaningful use requirements is good news, especially for small, rural and safety net facilities.”

WASHINGTON – The government has paid $400 million in meaningful use incentives to physicians and hospitals so far, a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services official told the Health IT Policy Committee Aug. 3.

To date, about 77,000 providers have registered for the program aimed at promoting the adoption and use of electronic health records.

CMS has collected data about healthcare providers that have attested that meet Stage 1 meaningful use, offering a glimpse of the experience of early adopters of certified electronic health records. One of the findings showed that providers used required EHR functions with a higher percentage of patients than was called for in the requirements, according to CMS officials.

Twenty-one states have launched their Medicaid EHR program, with Arizona, Connecticut, Rhode Island and West Virginia in the past month, according to CMS.

Among preliminary data, 2,383 physicians and other eligible professionals had verified that they met meaningful use requirements under the Medicare program, with 137 attesting unsuccessfully. The analysis did not explain why those providers failed attestation, but the agency will drill down to find the reason behind the numbers, said Robert Tagalicod, the new director of CMS’ Office of e-Health Standards and Services. However, 100 hospitals have attested and all have done so successfully.

The agency is cautious about what the numbers may indicate and is aware that early adopters may have more experience with EHRs than later adopters, Tagalicod told the Health IT Policy Committee, which advises the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC).

“It would be too early to draw conclusions yet, but we will be working closely with the policy committee as well as ONC to understand what these data say to us and how we should interpret them so we can translate them into something more programmatic,” he said.

CMS has paid Medicaid incentives to 3,500 physicians and hospitals for adoption, implementation and upgrades of certified EHR technology, and under the Medicare program, 1,000 physicians and hospitals.

Farzad Mostashari, MD, the national health IT coordinator said that from what he has heard from the field, there is “an incredible amount of movement happening. The changes that are happening may be difficult to see day to day. But from where we are today from where we were two years ago, the transformation is real and it’s happening.”

One particular statistic in CMS’ data is promising. The number of physicians who received meaningful use incentive payments under Medicare increased significantly in July over June, from 329 physicians to 566, said Elizabeth Holland, CMS’ director of health IT initiatives group. “We’re hoping that that will be a continuing trend,” she said.

To receive payments of up to $18,000 in 2011, providers must not only attest that they can demonstrate meaningful use but meet the threshold of $24,000 for allowed charges in claims for covered services to Medicare beneficiaries during 2011.

Also in the July report, CMS included for the first time the medical specialties associated with the eligible physicians and other professionals. The two top specialties are family practice and internal medicine.

Among other findings, providers on average met or exceeded the threshold performance or percentage of a provider’s patients involved in a measure demonstrating an EHR’s functionality, Tagalicod said. For example, providers had to use computerized physician order entry (CPOE) for at least one medication order entered for more than 30 percent of unique patients who have at least one medication on their medication list. On average, providers used it for 87 percent of the defined patient population, he said.

Neil Calman, MD, a policy committee member and CEO of the Institute for Family Health in New York, said the findings supported what many have believed about advanced functionality.

“Once you have the capability of doing something in your system, people tend to do it much more than the thresholds we’ve set. So once you start doing e-prescribing, you can do it for everybody. I wouldn’t be surprised if these high levels are maintained as people qualify,” he said.
The most popular menu or choice objectives for attesting providers were to incorporate lab results, conduct drug formulary checks and fulfill patient lists. The least popular were conducting medication reconciliation and summary of care record at transitions.

Source URL: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/400m-ehr-incentives-delivered
Links:
[1] http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/scanned-patient-records-will-keep-paper-around-even-mu
[2] http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mostashari-backs-stage-2-delay-2014

This week, Reps. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.) introduced legislation (HR 2729) — called the Health IT Modernization for Underserved Communities Act — that would allow physician assistants who meet certain requirements to qualify for incentive payments under the meaningful use program, Modern Healthcare reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health records can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
According to the American Academy of Physician Assistants, physicians and nurse practitioners can receive incentive payments if Medicaid beneficiaries account for at least 30% of their patient volume (Zigmond, Modern Healthcare, 8/4).
HR 2729 would expand those eligibility requirements so physician assistants could receive the incentive payments if Medicaid beneficiaries account for at least 30% of their patient load (Rodak, Becker’s Hospital Review, 8/4).
In a statement, AAPA President Robert Wooten praised the legislation, saying “this bill extends the promise of improved medical care to the Medicaid patients served by a physician assistant.”
The bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee (Modern Healthcare, 8/4).

Read more: http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2011/8/4/new-bill-would-extend-ehr-incentive-payments-to-physician-assistants.aspx#ixzz1UBNOSahD