Meaningful Use

“Meaningful Use” is the type of use that eligible hospitals and eligible professionals must make of a certified electronic health record in order to qualify for Medicare incentive dollars under the HITECH Act.

MU Deadlines for Eligible Professionals

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

UPDATE: 2/10/2014.  On Friday 2/7/2014, CMS announced an extension until March 31, 2014 for Eligible Professionals to submit their 2013 EHR Meaningful Use (MU) attestation.  In addition, Eligible Hospitals that had trouble submitting their 2013 MU attestation may be able to retroactively submit their MU attestation to avoid the 2015 payment adjustment but must contact CMS by March 15, 2014 at 11:59 pm to do so.  Note that only the attestation deadline is being moved and not the requirement to meet meaningful use by September 30, 2013 for Eligible Hospitals and by December 31, 2013 for Eligible Professionals in order to avoid the 2015 payment adjustment.   (We would provide you a link to the CMS announcement but it currently is not readily available on the CMS EHR Incentive Program website and, in fact, CMS has not yet updated its deadline on its home page for the Program.)

Eligible professionals, such as physicians, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists and chiropractors, should be aware of two upcoming dates related to their participation in the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. The reporting period ends December 31, 2013, and the deadline to attest to “meaningful use” ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on February 28, 2014. For additional information about the process of attesting to meaningful use, check out CMS’ Attestation Guide for Medicare EPs .

CMS Extends Stage 2 Meaningful Use through 2016

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

Keyboard and stethoscopeOn Friday, November 6, 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC) announced its proposal to extend the timeline by which eligible healthcare providers must demonstrate a “meaningful use” (MU) of a certified electronic health record (EHR) in compliance with the MU Stage 2 criteria set forth in regulations issued pursuant to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009.   Originally, eligible providers who demonstrated Stage 1 MU by the end of 2013 would have had to demonstrate at least 3 months of Stage 2 MU by September 30, 2014 for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) and by December 31, 2014 for eligible professionals, do one more year of Stage 2 in 2015, and then move to Stage 3 by 2016.  The CMS – ONC apparently will give all eligible providers more time to stay in Stage 2, stating: “Under the revised timeline, Stage 2 will be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 will begin in 2017 for those providers that have completed at least two years in Stage 2.” In essence, the start of Stage 3 is being delayed and, apparently (pending further rule making), nothing else.

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Lessons Learned from Meaningful Use Audits

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

HITECH Act meaningful use auditor
By Margaret Levi and Kathie McDonald-McClure
 
As we previously reported in a blog post on September 24, 2013, an eligible professional, eligible hospital, or critical access hospital receiving an incentive payment for the meaningful use (MU) of electronic health records (EHRs) will likely be subject to a stringent audit from either Medicare or Medicaid.  The fact that these MU audits are underway is now fully evident.

We have heard from several sources that CMS auditors are hitting Tennessee and Kentucky hospitals and physician practices and demanding repayment of meaningful use incentive monies if providers cannot fully back up their attestations for Stage 1 compliance in every respect. 

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November 30th Meaningful Use Deadline for Hospitals

Margaret Young Levi Electronic Health Records, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Hospital EHR Incentives, Meaningful Use , , , , , , ,

clip_image002Saturday, November 30, 2013, is the last day for hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) to register and attest to receive an incentive payment for FY2013 under the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program.  In the flurry of Thanksgiving activities, holiday travel and Black Friday shopping, don’t forget to take advantage of this deal.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has posted a reminder of these deadlines on its Medicare & Medicaid EHR Incentive Program Registration & Attestation System webpage.
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Retention of Paper Medical Records After Converting to Electronic Health Records

Margaret Young Levi Electronic Health Records, Federal Law Resources, HITECH Law, Meaningful Use, Privacy & Security , , , , , ,
191563_blog_medical%20Records

NOTE: On February 18, 2010, we posted an article about what to do with paper medical records when converting to an electronic health record (EHR). To date, this has been the most popular article on the HITECH Law Blog. We decided to re-review the topic, update it, and repost it. Actually, not much has changed in the way of the law applicable to this topic. So, the article below reiterates most of the tips from our original article with a few refinements, including additional information about retention periods. This article also is relevant to deciding on the retention period for legacy EHR records when converting to another EHR.

Many hospitals have electronic health records (EHRs) that are hybrid digital records. While the hospital may be using electronic data entry in the emergency department, inpatient nursing care, pharmacy, lab, and pre-op anesthesia, oftentimes, these EHRs are not integrated and, thus, are not merged into a single EHR. The short-term solution may have been to scan printed records from some department, like lab or pharmacy, into the patient’s on-line digital record. As a result, the hospital’s “electronic health record” contains information that is not captured in a “coded format.” For one, this will not meet the “meaningful use” criteria under the HITECH Act.

But let’s assume that the hospital can overcome this hurdle by working with vendors to integrate these records in a way that will meet HITECH EHR certification standards. If the hospital has been maintaining certain portions of patient records in a paper format, what does it do with those paper records after converting to an EHR? If the hospital scans all the paper patient records into its EHR, how long should the hospital retain the paper record after it is scanned into their EHR?

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