Eligible Professional Incentives

February 28th Deadline for EPs To File Attestation for EHR Incentives and CQMs

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

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

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

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

Kathie McDonald-McClure EHR Certification Standards, Eligible Professional Incentives, Federal Law Resources, Health care reform, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Hospital EHR Stimulus, Meaningful Use , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hands on keyboard in circleOn 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 →

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:

Continue reading →