Meaningful use incentives ascend past $14.5B

     

June 06, 2013 | Diana Manos, Healthcare IT News

 

As of the end of April, the federal government has paid out $14.6 billion in EHR incentive payments, according to Robert Anthony, deputy director of the HIT Initiative Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of E-Health Standards and Services.
At the Health IT Policy Committee meeting on Wednesday, Anthony said the numbers were the most current available and show an increasing number of providers are interested in the program. There were 395,000 eligible providers and hospitals in “active registration” in the federal meaningful use program--out of a total pool of 532,000.
Though Medicaid providers lag behind Medicare providers in the program, CMS is encouraged by the steady increase in Medicaid eligible providers signing up to participate. To date, there are some 13,000 Medicaid meaningful users. “We’re seeing more and more come in month-to-month,” Anthony said. “In April, 3,200 came in and demonstrated meaningful use.”

Anthony said CMS is seeing an upward trend of meaningful users — both Medicaid and Medicare — who are not in primary care. Currently, 61 percent are in specialty care.
The numbers are slightly lagging behind those paid out a year ago at this time, but this relates to the fiscal year when certain providers are able to attest according to the program, Anthony said. “We will likely see more eligible providers and hospitals come in after the close of the fiscal year (October 1),” he said.
According to the latest data, a little more than 77 percent of hospitals have been paid under the program, and registration for eligible providers continues “pretty handily” at 75 percent, Anthony said. Three out of every four four eligible hospitals have made a financial commitment to an electronic health record, he said.
Also, according to Anthony:

• Approximately 50 percent or one out of every two  Medicare EPs are meaningful users of EHRs
• Approximately 63 percent of all Medicaid EPs have received an EHR incentive payment
• 10 percent of Medicaid EPs are meaningful users
• More than 55 percent – one out of every two  Medicare and Medicaid EPs have made a financial commitment to an EHR.

More than 292,000 Medicare and Medicaid eligible providers have received an EHR incentive payment as of the end of April. Not all EPs are new, some are returning from a previous year, Anthony said. “Depending on how the numbers come together, we believe we’ll surpass 300,000 unique providers paid under the program, by the end of May.”
CMS analysis, with data through April, showed 194,080 eligible providers had attested: 193,867 successfully and 213 unsuccessfully. Some 2,977 hospitals had attested, all successfully, Anthony reported.

http://www.govhealthit.com/news/meaningful-use-incentives-ascend-past-145b
 

Healthcare Innovation Council Calls Out CMS’ EHR Program as “Emperor Has No Clothes”

DALLAS -- 

An independent group of healthcare experts has called upon Congress to reconsider CMS’ “meaningful use” program to finance electronic health records (EHRs) for hospitals and physicians since it is not furthering Congress’ goal of improving patient care. The Healthcare Innovation Council submitted its commentary entitled “Let's Admit the Emperor Has No Clothes- It's Time to Redesign EHRs to Improve Patient Care” to U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander, Richard Burr, Tom Coburn, Mike Enzi, Pat Roberts and John Thune in response to an April 16, 2013 public invitation and report by such Senators that questioned the current EHR federal funding program and asked for public input.

Instead of improving patient care, the Council states that CMS’ EHR stimulus program is causing “a massive disruption of providers’ patient care focus as they chase ‘meaningful use’ dollars; increased burdens on physicians, nurses and clinicians since EHRs as currently designed require more, not less, of their time and effort; and an unprecedentedly huge expenditure by providers on EHR hardware and software at a time when providers are under severe financial pressures.” The Council states that there is a growing chorus of experts who are beginning to question whether CMS’ EHR program is misdirected and not likely to achieve its objectives within a reasonable period of time.

The Council’s commentary cites numerous examples about how the current breed of EHRs and the method they are being implemented are not improving patient care, as required by Congress when it approved $30+ billion of taxpayer monies for EHRs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The Council recommends to the six U.S. Senators and the U.S. Congress that “it’s time to redo the ‘meaningful use’ EHR stimulus program to ensure that EHRs are designed and implemented in ways that help them improve patient care quality, safety and efficiency. It’s time to ‘reboot’ before all of the ‘meaningful use’ monies are spent and make that happen.” If that doesn’t happen, then the Council urges “Congress to halt CMS’ ‘meaningful use’ EHR program and spend the remainder of the ‘meaningful use’ funds on providing financial incentives for hospitals and other providers that demonstrate ‘meaningful improvements in patient care’ through whatever means they choose, and leave it to the healthcare providers, not our federal government, to choose the most effective means to improve patient care.” A copy of the Council’s commentary can be found at: www.antheliohealth.com/downloads/Council-EHR-commentary.pdf