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July 13, 2010 - CMIO.net

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) issued the final rules on Meaningful Use and Standards and Certification, which providers must follow in order to benefit from the approximate $27.3 billion in financial incentives over 10 years, authorized under the HITECH Act’s EHR incentive program.

Those who joined in the announcement were Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Donald Berwick, MD, new CMS Administrator, David Blumenthal, MD, the National Coordinator for Health IT and Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, Surgeon General

The department published proposed meaningful use requirements on Jan. 16. The proposal prompted some 2,000 comments. Today, the HHS released a final regulation for the first two years (2011 and 2012) of this multiyear incentive program.

“Electronic health records are the foundation of a high performing and high quality health system,” said Sebelius. “When the record is properly designed and implemented, it is a powerful force for increasing physician and patient satisfaction.  We hope that other provider groups will embrace these standards.” She noted that only 20 percent of hospitals and 10 percent of physicians use basic EHRs.

The centerpiece of the program begins in 2011, when doctors and providers can receive incentives for the use of IT. “In order to receive these incentives, providers will need to embody these standards, as it was never our goal to use technology for technology’s sake,” Sebelius said.

Likewise, Blumenthal wrote in an editorial that was simultaneously released in the New England Journal of Medicine: “HITECH’s goal is not adoption alone but ‘meaningful use’ of EHRs—that is, their use by providers to achieve significant improvements in care. The legislation ties payments specifically to the achievement of advances in healthcare processes and outcomes.”

The final regulation is divided into two groups: a set of core objectives that constitute a starting point for meaningful use of EHRs and a separate menu of additional important activities from which providers will choose several to implement in the first two years, Blumenthal explained.

June 28, 2010 - Mary Mosquera, Government Health IT

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to combine data on healthcare quality required by the health IT meaningful use plan into its ongoing physician quality reporting and incentive program.  The new health reform law required CMS to integrate its Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) with data from the HITECH Act's meaningful use provisions by Jan. 1, 2012.

Under the PQRI, physicians who participate in Medicare can receive incentives for reporting various quality measures, a select number of which are aimed at those who want to report using EHRs.  Providers who become meaningful users of EHRs, as laid down by the HITECH Act will also be eligible for incentive payments. A final rule on that is expected soon.

The CMS has requested public comment on how it should integrate the two programs, included within a proposed rule about changes in Medicare physician payments for 2011. CMS expects to publish the proposed rule July 13.  “In an effort to align PQRI with the EHR incentive program, we propose to include many ARRA core clinical quality measures in the PQRI program, to demonstrate meaningful use of EHR and quality of care furnished to individuals,” the proposed rule says.

Meaningful use measures that physicians could use for PQRI reporting through electronic health records include such things as blood pressure measurement for hypertension, body mass index screening and prevention care follow up, and drugs to be avoided in the elderly, the CMS says.