Meaningful Use
Final Meaningful Use Definition, Criteria Issued Today
As you may be aware, today the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final definition of the meaningful use of an electronic health record (EHR) and the criteria for qualifying for incentives under the HITECH act. The final rule specifies the following:
- The initial criteria (Stage 1) that eligible providers (EPs), eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must meet in order to qualify for an incentive payment;
- Calculation of the incentive payment amounts
- Payment adjustments under Medicare for covered professional services and inpatient hospital services provided by EPs, eligible hospitals and CAHs that fail to demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology;
- And other program participation requirements.
In addition, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will be issuing a closely related final rule that specifies the Secretary’s adoption of an initial set of standards, implementation, specifications and certification criteria for electronic health records. ONC has also issued a separate final rule on the establishment of certification programs for health information technology.
McKesson has a team of people delving into the lengthy final rules to evaluate changes from the proposed rules and determine how the changes affect our products. Stay tuned for much more information on meaningful use and certification to come.