On Friday, May 3, 2013, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC) jointly hosted a listen and learn webcast about the impact of EHRs on coding and billing. Look for HITECHMcClure on Twitter for comments from the panelists. Materials used during the session can be accessed here. CMS plans to post an audio recording of the session on its Educational Resources webpage at a later date.
EHR Certification Standards
Standards set by HHS Office of National Coordinator for electronic health records that must be satisfied in order to be “certified” and in order for eligible hospitals and eligible professionals who use such EHRs to qualify for Medicare incentive dollars under the HITECH Act.
ONC revokes two EHR product certifications — review your vendor contract warranties!
On April 25, 2013, the Officer of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) announced that it had revoked certification for two electronic health record (EHR) products that the ONC had previously certified for use as part of the incentive program implemented pursuant to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act). The products for which ONC revoked certification are EHRMagic-Ambulatory and EHRMagic-Inpatient. The ONC’s press release with additional information is available here.
Whether the providers who purchased these products in reliance on the previous ONC certification will be able to recoup their investment in these products may depend on the terms of any vendor agreement signed between the parties. For providers who are purchasing ONC-certified products, this development highlights the importance of examining the provider’s EHR vendor agreement to ensure that it contains adequate warranty and indemnification provisions that will protect the provider in case the vendor’s product is de-certified by the ONC. Importantly, without “certified EHR technology”, the provider will not qualify for the HITECH Act’s meaningful use incentive payments.
February 28th Deadline for EPs To File Attestation for EHR Incentives and CQMs
The deadline is fast approaching for eligible professionals (“EPs”) to file attestations to receive electronic health record (“EHR”) incentives available under Medicare’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (“HITECH Act”).
To receive an EHR incentive payment, EPs, such as physicians, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists and chiropractors, must show they are “meaningfully using” their EHRs in ways that can positively improve patient care by meeting certain objectives and reporting certain clinical quality measures (“CQMs”). EPs must also file an attestation that they have met the thresholds and all of the requirements of the Medicare EHR Incentive Program. EPs who participate in the Medicare EHR Incentive Program in 2012 must submit the CQMs and file an attestation with CMS for the 2012 program year by February 28, 2013.
If you are participating in the pilot program to submit your CQM data electronically, please be aware that your window to file is limited because of a planned system downtime. You will be unable to file your CQM data beginning at 11:59 p.m. ET tomorrow, Friday, February 22 through Sunday, February 24 at 11:59 p.m. ET because CMS has a system outage already scheduled that will affect CQM filing. (We understand, but have been unable to verify, that you may still file an attestation during the outage.) The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) warns that “[f]ailure to submit your CQMs electronically by 11:59pm ET on February 28 will result in your attestation being rejected for the 2012 program year.”
We also recommend you not wait until the last minute—as CMS expects a high volume of users on both the Physician Quality Reporting System (“PQRS”) and EHR Incentive Program systems over the next week. Please keep this in mind when planning for your CQM data submission and completion of your 2012 attestation.
For additional information regarding the EHR Incentive Program, check out CMS’ EHR Incentive Programs website. Its Educational Materials in particular are quite helpful. In addition, CMS has recently updated its frequently asked questions (“FAQs”) related to the EHR Incentive Programs.
CMS Issues Interim Final Rule on EHR Certification and Incentives
On December 7, 2012, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published an interim final rule with comment period to make revisions to the 2014 Edition Electronic Health Record (EHR) and revisions to the EHR Incentive Program. Specifically, this rule will:
- Replace the Data Element Catalog (DEC) standard and the Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Category III standard adopted in the final rule published on September 4, 2012 with updated versions of those standards.
- Revise the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs by adding an alternative measure for the Stage 2 meaningful use (MU) objective for hospitals to provide structured electronic laboratory results to ambulatory providers, correcting the regulation text for the measures associated with the objective for hospitals to provide patients the ability to view online, download, and transmit information about a hospital admission, and making the case number threshold exemption for clinical quality measure (CQM) reporting applicable for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) beginning with FY 2013.
- Provide notice of CMS’s intention to issue technical corrections to the electronic specifications for CQMs released on October 25, 2012.
This interim final rule will be effective January 5, 2012.
House Calls for Suspension of EHR Incentive Payments under HITECH Act
On Thursday, October 4, 2012, in a letter to Secretary Sebelius of the United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), the United States House GOP called on HHS to suspend incentive payments for the adoption and implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) otherwise authorized under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act). The GOP also asked HHS to delay the imposition of penalties on providers who choose not to use EHRs in their practice (such penalties that pursuant to the HITECH Act provisions are to take the form of reductions in Medicare reimbursements in 2015). Continue reading
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