The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) needs to "rethink" its definition of a "meaningful user" of electronic health records (EHR) and come up with a plan that gives hospitals "a good deal more flexibility" and time to qualify for the incentive program, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-TX, last week said at a "town hall" webcast hosted by the AHA.
Burgess, a physician and member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said it would be "very difficult" for hospitals to meet the rule's criteria and called its timeframes "unrealistic."
Burgess, along with Reps. Eliot Engel, D-NY, Zack Space, D-OH, and Cliff Stearns, R-FL, is calling on House colleagues to sign an AHA-supported letter that urges CMS to make its health information technology (IT) rule more practical and flexible. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-MI, and Orrin Hatch, R-UT, are circulating a similar letter in the Senate.
In a March 3 Advocacy Alert, the AHA encouraged hospital leaders to contact their lawmakers and ask them to sign the IT letters that are circulating on Capitol Hill.
Burgess told AHA members participating in last week's interactive webcast that the House letter describes the proposed EHR rule as an "ambitious all or nothing approach, and that was being kind."
He said that "what [CMS] has outlined in its proposal is not achievable." He encouraged hospitals leaders to take their concerns with the proposal directly to their lawmakers and CMS.
Under the 2009 "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" (ARRA), hospitals must be meaningful users of EHRs to qualify for additional Medicare and Medicaid payments beginning in 2011 and avoid significant payment penalties beginning in 2015. March 15 is the deadline for public comments on the proposed rule. The AHA today plans to send a comment letter to CMS (see page 1).
The proposed definition of EHR meaningful use was released on Dec. 30, along with a companion interim final rule that sets standards, specification and certification criteria for EHR technology.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week issued another in its series of IT regulations resulting from ARRA. HHS proposed a rule to create a temporary program and a permanent program for certifying health IT.
The temporary program would test and certify initial EHR products for health care providers seeking incentive payments for meaningful use of certified EHR technology under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentives program. It would be replaced by a permanent program that separates testing and certification responsibilities, introduces accreditation requirements, establishes requirements for certification bodies and allows them to certify technologies besides EHRs.
While both programs are described in the proposed rule, HHS anticipates issuing separate final rules for the two programs. For more information, visit http://healthit.hhs.gov/.
