Written by Brooke Haycraft, CEMC, CFPC, CPC-H, CPC
In early October of 2015, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has released its final rule for both the Meaningful Use and Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) Incentive program.
This final ruling will define the requirements eligible healthcare professionals, hospitals, and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) must meet in order to qualify for various incentive payments and to also avoid penalties for non-participation.
CMS examined and studied over 2,500 comments on the proposed rule to develop the final policies and procedures. Below lists several highlights and key changes that will have immediate effect with healthcare providers and eligible care centers in regards to Meaningful Use and EHR Incentive Program.
Timeframes
- Confirmation that CMS will offer a 90-day reporting period in 2015 for all providers; physicians will now have the flexibility to choose any 90-day time span for the current year, which is an adjustment from the previously stated 12-month reporting period.
- 90-day flexible reporting periods will also be an option for all new participants for both 2016 and 2017.
- State Medicaid agencies and healthcare providers will be given additional time (until January 1, 2018) to adhere to updated requirements and system improvements.
Security
- Healthcare entities will now be required to protect patient’s personal health information through security risk analysis.
- Providers will now be responsible to ensure secure electronic messaging is enabled between the provider and patient.
Meaningful Use, Stages 2 & 3
- CMS has reduced the amount of objectives providers are required to meet for 2015 through 2017 due to unnecessary complications and duplicity. Provisions for EHR Incentive Programs include;
· Eligible healthcare providers must meet 10 objectives, lowered from a previous 18 objectives, one of which will include public health reporting.
· Hospitals and CAHs will have to report and meet nine objectives, reduced from 20 objectives.
· Providers, hospitals and CAHs will have to report Clinical Quality Measures (CQM) only once to receive credit for other incentive programs.
- Public health reporting and adjustable choices for measuring compliance.
- Completing the use of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) will help to link EHR systems and contribute to expanding data access. Expanding data access will allow patients to be both further involved with their personal health care and encourage them to partake in important medical decisions.
- All healthcare providers will be required to comply with Meaningful Use, Stage 3 provisions by the beginning of 2018.
CMS has recently announced that there will be a 60-day comment timeframe for healthcare providers and the public to provide feedback regarding Meaningful Use final ruling and the EHR Incentive Programs. Providers and healthcare entities are encouraged to evaluate and review provisions and provide comments for final decisions going forward.
For more information regarding the EHR Incentive Program, please visit the CMS Fact Sheet at the below link:
https://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2015-Fact-sheets-items/2015-10-06.html