Rep. Michael Burgess, M.D., (R-TX) today introduced legislation that would allow health care providers to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments in 2011 and 2012 if their current electronic health record systems meet meaningful use requirements but are not certified. Under the Office of the National Coordinator's final rule for certification of EHRs, only hospitals using EHRs certified under a new federal certification process can qualify for incentive payments. No certified products are yet available. Without a legislative fix, all hospitals and physicians, including those early adopters with the most advanced systems, would need to install new certified EHRs, upgrade to a certified version or certify their installed systems at their own expense before they can apply for the incentives. "Hospitals and physicians across the country will need to purchase and install EHRs within a short-time frame, potentially causing delays in vendors' ability to fill those orders," AHA wrote Burgess in a letter of support. "This situation will be exacerbated by an IT workforce shortage, which is estimated to be 50,000.…Your bill would help to alleviate this situation by providing for the temporary treatment of certain EHR products as certified for purposes of EHR payment incentives." All EHR product upgrades would still have to be certified under the legislation.