Final Meaningful Use Definition, Criteria Issued Today

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Gavin Walker
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Final Meaningful Use Definition, Criteria Issued Today

Post by Gavin Walker » Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:25 pm

As you may be aware, today the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final definition of the meaningful use of an electronic health record (EHR) and the criteria for qualifying for incentives under the HITECH act. The final rule specifies the following:
  • • The initial criteria (Stage 1) that eligible providers (EPs), eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must meet in order to qualify for an incentive payment;
    • Calculation of the incentive payment amounts
    • Payment adjustments under Medicare for covered professional services and inpatient hospital services provided by EPs, eligible hospitals and CAHs that fail to demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology;
    • And other program participation requirements.

In addition, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will be issuing a closely related final rule that specifies the Secretary’s adoption of an initial set of standards, implementation, specifications and certification criteria for electronic health records. ONC has also issued a separate final rule on the establishment of certification programs for health information technology.

McKesson has a team of people delving into the lengthy final rules to evaluate changes from the proposed rules and determine how the changes affect our products. Stay tuned for much more information on meaningful use and certification to come.
Gavin Walker
Walker Tek Solutions, LLC
417-890-6777 x0
fax: 417-763-6386

User avatar
Gavin Walker
Posts: 4625
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:11 pm
Location: Springfield, MO
Contact:

Re: Final Meaningful Use Definition, Criteria Issued Today

Post by Gavin Walker » Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:51 pm

As you know, in mid-July, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the final rules for meaningful use and Certification standards of electronic health record (EHR) systems under the HITECH provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The rules establish the requirements for eligible hospitals and providers to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentives for meaningful use of certified EHRs.

In a nutshell, here is what the final meaningful use rules are:
• Two categories of requirements are established in the final rule (Core and Menu):
  • 1. The 15 Core set of objectives are not optional, and the specified measurement for each objective must be achieved.
    2. The Menu set of objectives allows eligible providers to select five of the 10 objectives based on their current stage of EHR implementation.

• Administrative and financial objectives (electronic claims submission and eligibility checking) have been deferred to Stage 2.

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