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.

Final Rules for Stage 2 EHR Incentive Programs Released

Margaret Young Levi EHR Certification Standards, Electronic Health Records, Eligible Professional Incentives, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Hospital EHR Stimulus, Meaningful Use , , , , , , , , , ,

First, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the long-awaited final rule to govern Stage 2 of the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs. The rule specifies the Stage 2 criteria that eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must meet in order to continue to participate in the EHR Incentive Programs.

  • Click here for the full text of CMS’s final rule.
  • Click here to see the fact sheet on CMS’s final rule.

Second,  the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) also announced a related final rule, which specifies the technical capabilities and related standards and implementation specifications that Certified EHR Technology will need to include to support the achievement of meaningful use by EPs, eligible hospitals, and CAHs under the EHR Incentive Programs.

  • Click here for the full text of the ONC rule.
  • Click here  to read a fact sheet on ONC’s standards and certification criteria final rule.

Stay tuned.  We will be posting more about these final rules in the days to come.

Get Ready for Audits on EHR Incentive Payments

Margaret Young Levi EHR Certification Standards, Electronic Health Records, Eligible Professional Incentives, Federal Law Resources, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Hospital EHR Stimulus, Meaningful Use, Privacy & Security , , , , ,

The promised audits have begun for providers receiving electronic health records (EHR) incentives available under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. 

In order to receive Medicare EHR incentive payments, providers must attest to CMS that they meet Meaningful Use (MU) criteria using certified EHR technology.  Any provider attesting to receive an EHR incentive payment for either the Medicare EHR Incentive Program or the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program potentially may be subject to an audit.  If an audit finds a provider is not eligible for an EHR incentive payment because it does not meet MU criteria, then the incentive payment will be recouped.   Here’s what providers need to know to prepare for an audit:

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CMS Releases Proposed Rule for Stage 2 Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records

Kathie McDonald-McClure EHR Certification Standards, Electronic Health Records, Eligible Professional Incentives, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Hospital EHR Stimulus, Meaningful Use, Physician EMR Stimulus , , , , , , ,

On Thursday, February 23, 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), pursuant to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, released a 455-page Proposed Rule specifying the Stage 2 criteria that eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must meet in order to qualify for Medicare and/or Medicaid incentives related to electronic health records (EHRs).  The Proposed Rule also proposes to modify certain Stage 1 criteria, as well as criteria that apply regardless of Stage, as previously published in the Final Rule on July 28, 2010 in the Federal Register.  The proposed provisions related to Medicaid (calculations of patient volume and hospital eligibility) would take effect shortly after the finalization of the Proposed Rule and would not be subject to the proposed one-year delay for Stage 2 meaningful use of a certified EHR.  The Proposed Rule states that the changes to Stage 1 would take effect for 2013, but that most changes would be optional until 2014.  Last but not least, the Proposed Rule addresses the Medicare payment adjustments that will take place for EPs, eligible hospitals and CAHs who fail to demonstrate a meaningful use of certified EHRs by 2015 and proposed exceptions to such adjustments.

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Final Rule on ACOs encourages EHR adoption but eliminates “meaningful use” requirement

Margaret Young Levi EHR Certification Standards, Electronic Health Records, Health care reform, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Meaningful Use , , , , , , , ,

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today, October 20, 2011, that the use of certified electronic health records (EHRs) will be the highest-weighted quality measure for an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) under the new Medicare Shared Savings Program.

ACOs are designed to encourage primary care doctors, specialists, hospitals, and other health care providers to coordinate their care. The CMS Final Rule on ACOs bases the amount of shared savings that an ACO may receive for its performance on four domains of quality: 1) quality standards on patient experience; 2) care coordination and patient safety; 3) preventive health; and 4) at-risk populations.  To earn shared savings the first performance year, providers must report across all four domains of quality, which include a total of 33 quality measures.  Providers will begin to share in savings based on how well they perform on 23 of the 33 quality measures in the second performance year and on 32 of the 33 measures in the third performance year. 

Measure 20 of the 33 quality measures requires ACOs to report the percentage of primary care providers (PCPs) who successfully qualify for an EHR Incentive Program payment.  CMS expanded the scope of PCPs who can be counted in this measure by eliminating the requirement that the PCP be a “meaningful EHR user” as defined in 42 C.F.R. § 495.4 of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009.  CMS stated that it “decided to . . . expand [measure 20] to include any PCP who successfully qualifies for an EHR Incentive Program incentive rather than only including those deemed meaningful users.”

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Farzad Mostashari, MD, speaks at 2011 Kentucky eHealth Summit

Kathie McDonald-McClure EHR Certification Standards, Electronic Health Records, Eligible Professional Incentives, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Hospital EHR Stimulus, Meaningful Use, State HIT Grants & Loans , , , , ,

On September 6 and 7, 2011, the Kentucky Governor’s Office of Electronic Health Information hosted the 4th annual Kentucky eHealth Summit at the METS Center, 3861 Olympic Boulevard, Erlanger, KY 41018 in northern Kentucky.  

Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for the United States Department of Health & Human Services, addressed attendees of the Summit. Dr. Mostashari discussed the Office of National Coordinator’s initiatives and the future of health information technology, including the launch of a Consumer Health IT Program on September 12, 2011.  More information about the Kentucky eHealth Summit can be found here.

Kentucky was the first state in the United States to award Medicaid incentive money to a hospital and quickly followed in awards to other healthcare providers who completed an attestation of their plan to adopt, implement, or upgrade an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system.  For more information about the Kentucky Medicaid EHR Incentive program, and to read the FAQs and access additional helpful links, click here .