1/17/2012 – If you aren't using an electronic health record (EHR) in your practice, you are losing significant stimulus dollars. According to a new
Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services report, 1,119 Pennsylvania physicians or "eligible providers" (EPs) received over $20 million in 2011 in Medicare EHR incentive payments. In addition, 1,314 physicians/EPs received over $27 million in 2011 to date in Medicaid EHR incentive payments.
| 2011 EHR Stimulus dollars for Pennsylvania Physicians/(eligible providers) |
|
Program
|
Number of physicians
|
Dollars paid
|
|
Medicare
|
1,119
|
$20,142,000
|
|
Medicaid
|
1,314
|
$27,277,947
|
In order to receive the full incentive for Meaningful Use, you must make an "attestation" by February 28, 2013 to show you are using the system as required. That means you will have to collect all reports validating compliance and supporting attestation by the 3rd quarter of 2012. This is the second in a series of articles in Progress Notes; the first was an introduction to Meaningful Use. This article takes a deeper look at some of the core objectives included in the program.
Specifically, physicians have a total of 25 Meaningful Use objectives and you'll need to meet 20 of these 25 objectives There are 15 required core objectives; you can choose the remaining five from 10 menu objectives As an example, the table below lists five of the core objectives along with the specific Stage 1 measure and any exclusions for the objective. There are 3 Stages for Meaningful Use. With each successive Stage, the metrics are more difficult to achieve.
|
Name
|
Objective
|
Stage 1 Measure
|
Exclusions
|
|
Clinical Provider Order Entry
|
Use CPOE for medication orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines.
|
More than 30 percent of all unique patients with at least one medication in their medication list seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period have at least one medication order entered using CPOE.
|
If an EP writes fewer than one hundred prescriptions during the EHR reporting period they would be excluded from this requirement.
|
|
Drug-Drug and Drug-Allergy Checks
|
Implement drug-drug and drug-allergy checks.
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The eligible professional has enabled this functionality for the entire reporting period.
|
|
|
Problem List
|
Maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses.
|
More than 80 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP have at least one entry or an indication that no problems are known for the patient recorded as structured data.
|
|
|
E-Prescribing
|
Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx). We do not include Schedule II narcotics or authorizations for items such as durable medical equipment or other items and services.
|
More than 40 percent of all permissible prescriptions written by the EP are transmitted electronically using certified EHR technology.
|
This objective and associated measure do not apply to any EP who writes fewer than one hundred prescriptions during the EHR reporting period.
|
|
Active Medication List
|
Maintain active medication list.
|
More than 80 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP have at least one entry (or an indication that the patient is not currently prescribed any medication) recorded as structured data.
|
|
http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/Downloads/EP-MU-TOC.pdf
As you can see, many of these objectives fall into the category of "business as usual" for those of you using an EHR. LG Health's e-Health will capture and report on this information in 2012. Otherwise, you should work with your EHR vendor to evaluate documentation, workflows, system configuration and reporting mechanisms to validate compliance for attestation.
Participating in the Meaningful Use initiative can be challenging and the rules may change as future stages are defined by CMS. Progress Notes will continue to keep you up to date with changes and provide tips to help ensure you meet the sometimes confusing Meaningful Use requirements.
For more information, please contact Dr. Michael Ripchinski at miripchi@lghealth.org