Kentucky joins 13 other states with CMS grants for EHR implementation

January 25, 2010March 2, 2010 Kathie McDonald-McClure Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, State HIT Grants & Loans ARRA HIT Grants, eligible professional incentives for electronic medical records, HITECH Act, hospital incentives for EHRs, linkedin

On Thursday, January 21, 2010, CMS announced that Alaska, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin, would receive federal matching funds for EHR implementation under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Kentucky’s grant is $2.6 million. CMS indicated that the grant will be used to study EHR implementation activities in the state, to establish the state’s Medicaid HIT incentive program, and to evaluate provider eligibility for the Medicaid incentive funds under the HITECH Act, which was part of ARRA. CMS has now made EHR grants to 14 states: Alaska, California, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, New York, South Carolina, Texas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Although the HITECH Act allows states to use federal matching funds to establish EHR loan programs for providers who need this avenue of support, there was no mention that the grant money would be used for that purpose. This could leave some professionals who have a low or non-existant Medicare patient base and an insufficient Medicaid patient base to qualify for the Medicaid EHR incentives (e.g., some pediatricians), without access to EHR stimulus funds under ARRA.

To read the CMS press release on Kentucky’s grant, go here. Information for this story also was gathered from Healthcare IT News and HealthImaging.com.

HHS Releases Proposed EHR “Meaningful Use” Standards

January 7, 2010July 8, 2010 Kathie McDonald-McClure Electronic Health Records, Eligible Professional Incentives, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Hospital EHR Stimulus, Meaningful Use, Physician EMR Stimulus EHR, Electronic Health Records, eligible professional incentives for electronic medical records, Health Information Technology, HIT, HITECH Act, HITECH implementation, hospital incentives for EHRs, linkedin, Meaningful Use, ONC

By 2014, hospitals and physicians whom Medicare reimburses for services and items will need to have adopted an electronic health record (EHR) according to rules promulgated under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) or risk reductions in their Medicare reimbursement. On December 30, 2009, the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), released their respective proposed rules for qualifying for EHR stimulus funds under HITECH: The “meaningful use” and “certified” EHR standards.

CMS Website on ARRA’s Health Information Technology Includes Fact Sheet with FAQs

June 26, 2009September 15, 2009 Kathie McDonald-McClure Electronic Health Records, Eligible Professional Incentives, Federal Law Resources, Health Information Technology, HITECH Law, Hospital EHR Stimulus, Privacy & Security eligible professional incentives for electronic medical records, Federal Law Resources, Health Information Technology, HIT, HITECH Act, hospital incentives for EHRs

On June 16, 2009, on the same date the ONC HIT Policy Committee released the first draft of “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHRs), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched the CMS Health Information Technology Website to address health information technology (Health IT or HIT) under the ARRA’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). The CMS HIT website focuses on the following three areas of ARRA Health IT:

Health IT incentives and support for adoption
Establishment of Health IT standards and infrastructure
Privacy and security pertaining to Health IT

These are the three main areas pertaining to Health IT in which CMS will be involved under the HITECH Act.