6 Steps to Make Sure You Attest for Meaningful Use Stage 2 CureMD 08:18

If you have attested for MeaningfulUse and received the EHR Incentive funds for the years 2011 or 2012, then you need to start preparing for Meaningful Use Stage 2 in 2014. The EHR incentive program for eligible providers is fairly well understood but in 2014 there are many changes that everyone needs to be aware of, whether you are starting out with an EHR or you have participated in an incentive program since 2011. These are the facts that you need to know:

• Upgrade to new version of EHR Software that should be 2014 certified regardless of if you are attesting under stage 1 or stage 2. Some of the vendors charge for the EHR software upgrade.

• If you are an Eligible Provider and you haven’t met any MU requirements either in 2013 or 2014 then there will be a 1% cut in Medicare Payments in 2015.

• For every provider there is a period of 2 years for each MU stage. For example if a provider started in 2011 or 2012 then that provider needs to report on stage 2 in 2014. If a provider starts in 2013, he will report stage 2 in 2015.

• In the year 2014 there will be 4 occasions to meet the stage 2 criteria. The reporting period in 2014 will be in quarters (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep. Oct-Dec) unless you are participating in 2014.

• The year 2014 is the last year for the providers who want to begin their participation in the Medicare Incentive Program. You need to report for any consecutive 90 day period that will end in September 30, 2014 and you need to attest it by October 1, 2014 to avoid the 1% penalty to Medicare payments.

• If you are participating in Medicaid Program then you should expect a 1% cut in 2015 if you haven’t attested for MU by October 1, 2014. Please note that first year of Medicaid participation is for Adopt/Implement/Upgrade and it does not count as attesting for MU.

 

Meaningful Use and ICD-10 CureMD 12:06

The idea that Meaningful Use and ICD-10 are challenging problems rather than complimentary initiatives is deceptive. For many of those who were able to understand the frightening realities of meeting the MU Stage 1 requirements like staffing, new systems, costs etc, know that ICD-10 was delayed a year to help us out. For most of us Stage 1 is done and now it’s time for Stage 2. Meaningful Use Stage 2 objective cannot be achieved without ICD-10.

Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently said: “Any further delay would be a distinct disadvantage to CMS and the industry because ICD-10 is integrated into other e-health initiatives. CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] is depending upon the granularity of ICD-10 data to contribute to improved quality and outcomes data, provide cost effective approaches to delivering health care, and supply us with information for better research”

A number of objectives of Meaningful Use Stage 2 include

• Exchange information relating to health between different healthcare organizations
• Engaging the patients through EHRs via the patient portals
• Enhancement in the reporting of quality measures by using correct data

Without the ICD-10 and the coding standards of the rest of the world it will be very difficult to achieve the above stated objectives of Stage 2. Otherwise without the ICD-10 the outcomes are

• Ambiguity in the information exchange
• Patients will get confused by patient portals if they are incomplete or inaccurate
• Quality measurement will be affected due to obsolete information

Amazingly we are observing that hospitals are also identifying the advantages of aligning these initiatives by stressing the need for improvement in clinical documentation measures that will positively affect the performance of the areas including finance, clinical and administration. At the same time combining the changes in education and workflow they can minimize the costly inefficiencies.

Farzad Mostashari, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) said that he believes ICD-10 can be a source of motivation for the providers.

All of this is a lot of work. But we have seen the achievements by the industry in Meaningful Use are impressive so far. Thus we need to keep the energy going and later harvest the rewards.