The Stimulus and Meaningful Use

On February 17, 2009 President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 which includes the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). The HITECH Act includes over $60B to stimulate spending on HIT - roughly $46B for pay-for-performance measures and $14B for grants. In order to qualify for the pay-for-performance incentives, physicians must show "meaningful use" of a certified EHR.

On July 13th, 2010 the federal government finalized how providers and hospitals will achieve “meaningful use” in order to receive stimulus from either Medicare or Medicaid. Since issuing a draft of the final rules in January 2010, the federal government received over 2,000 comments, and revised many of the rules to better accommodate physicians’ needs and desires.

Under the final ruling, the objectives of meaningful use have been broken into 2 groups: a core set and a menu set of objectives. In order to demonstrate meaningful use and receive federal stimulus money, providers must meet all requirements in the core set and 5/10 objectives from the menu set.

The core set comprise basic EHR functions such as creating a medical record, recording vitals, medications, allergies, maintaining up-to-date problem lists, and smoking status, among others. The menu set is broader in scope and spans across a wider range of topics and activities such as lab interfacing and patient education.

VersaSuite 8.0 meets all of the requirements for meaningful use. We guarantee it.

The table below was issued by the federal government to summarize the final meaningful use ruling:

For the latest information on Meaningful Use, visit HHS's meaningful use page.

Rewards for Achieving Meaningful Use

Providers that show meaningful use can receive up to $44,000 from Medicare.Learn more about Medicare Incentive Payments. The following chart shows when Medicare will issue EHR incentive payments based on when meaningful use is shown:

Medicaid is also offering EHR incentive payments up to $63,500 for physicians that meet meaningful use and that have at least 30% of their total patients covered by Medicaid. Learn more about Medicaid Incentive Payments. Doctors that qualify for Medicaid payments are ineligible for Medicare payments. The following chart shows when Medicaid will issue EHR incentive payments based on when meaningful use is shown:

Penalties for not Adopting

Although EHR adoption is not mandatory, Medicare will penalize physicians for not adopting EHR technology by 2015. The penalties reduce the available Medicare reimbursements on a percentage basis, and the penalty increases for each year that doctors don't adopt the technology.

For more Information:

We invite you to visit the HIMSS website for more detailed information regarding the Economic Stimulus for the Healthcare IT Industry.

http://www.himss.org/EconomicStimulus