What Is the Meaningful Use Final Rule?

After spending some time listening to physicians and other health care providers, not to mention some harsh criticism from Congress, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released the Meaningful Use Final Rule last month. That review time was spent gathering more than 2,500 comments about the challenges physicians face in trying to incorporate Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology into their practices and making that technology work for their patients as intended. Now, after the final rule was issued, CMS will continue to collect public comments about the EHR Incentive Program which provides cash incentives to practices that incorporate certified EHR technology under specific guidelines.

With the Meaningful Use Final Rule, CMS and OMC hope to simplify the requirements while allowing more flexibility to providers. The end goal is for an information infrastructure that uses EHR to help doctors, clinics and hospitals to communicate more efficiently and provide better health care to patients. According to CMS, “We eliminated unnecessary requirements, simplified and increased flexibility for those that remain, and focused on interoperability, information exchange, and patient engagement.”

Final Rule Overview

After reviewing the issues raised, CMS and ONC made changes meant to ease the burden of reporting, support the exchange of information and improve outcomes for patients. The Meaningful Use Final Rule includes the following key provisions:

• Provide the simplicity and flexibility to allow provides to choose the most meaningful measures to track and report on the progress of their practices.
• Provide providers and Medicaid agencies more time (until 2018) to comply with new requirements.
• Provide developers more time to create the next generation of EHR technology that will be more accessible to providers and patients alike.
• Shift the focus of health IT to become more of a tool for health care improvement.
• Support a stronger infrastructure for the exchange of information between providers and to patients.
• Allow flexible reporting periods that align with those of other programs.

The Meaningful Use program will continue to evolve over the next several years and CMS has laid out a 3 stage program to guide that evolution. Going forward, the program will focus on further easing the exchange of information and improving the overall quality of the program.

The Federal push to move away from a paper based records system continues. The consultants at ProMD Medical Billing are well versed in the particulars of EHR and the CMS incentive program meant to encourage providers to incorporate EHR. Contact us today to learn about the best EHR systems available and to take advantage of the government’s cash incentives.

ProMD Medical Billing is happy to help with your billing assessment needs so you can maximize profits and increase patient satisfaction. To learn more about how ProMD can make your practice run like a well-oiled machine, call 866-960-9558 or fill out our online form to request a billing assessment.

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