How Can Practices Cash in on Electronic Health Records?

Suzanne Denzine, Kolb+Co Shareholder   bio | email

Achieving Meaningful Use (MU) of electronic health record (EHR) systems has created a buzz in the medical and dental communities. Practices that are early adopters of EHR technology and have attained MU are already collecting their first incentive payment. The Medicare and state Medicaid incentive programs are now available to qualified providers. Are you wondering how they cashed in?

The Medicare Incentive

In 2011, to collect your incentive payment, you must:

• Use a certified EHR system;
• Achieve 90 consecutive days of MU;
• Register for the incentive program through Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS);
• Be accepted into the incentive program; and
• Complete the attestation process.

Registering for the Incentive Program

Assuming that you are using a certified EHR system, you can register anytime--even if you have yet to meet MU requirements. You must meet MU requirements for 90 consecutive days in your first reporting year. For 2011, you must begin meeting MU requirements by 10/1/2011 to qualify. It should be noted that registration is required for each eligible professional in your practice. If you have five doctors in your group, registration for each is mandatory. The registration process officially opened on 1/1/2011 and may be found at the following website: http://cms.gov/ehrincentiveprograms/.

Prior to registering for the incentive program you will need to:

• Acquire a National Provider Identifier (NPI) number; and
• Register with the Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System (PECOS) and record your PECOS number. This can be completed at: https://pecos.cms.hhs.gov/pecos/login.do.

Completing the Attestation Process

Once you are registered, are accepted into the program and have completed 90 consecutive days of MU in 2011, you must complete the process known as attestation. CMS requires a registered provider to attest to meeting MU as defined by CMS. This process will change in the future, but for now, you only need to attest online. The attestation process became available at the CMS website on April 1, 2011. You will have until 60 days after year-end to attest at the CMS website for 2011 reporting. Attestation will include the following.

• Stating the reporting period. This will include the date range being reported for 2011.
• Confirming that MU measures have been met or demonstrating specific measures are exempt to your practice. This includes the 15 core measures and an additional five menu measures. The measures are represented with data captured from your EHR. As an example, if 75 of your 100 patients, 13 years old and over, provided data on their smoking status, you would have captured this data for 75 percent of your patients and have met the MU measure.
• Reporting clinical quality measures using attestation similar to that of MU measures.

This completes the process for 2011. Payment of the incentive is expected to occur within a few weeks of attestation!

The Medicaid Incentive

The Medicaid attestation process will occur within the state programs. As with Medicare, the state programs require registration at the CMS website utilizing the same process as identified above. However, the attestation process for Medicaid is significantly different from that of Medicare. In year one, your practice merely needs to state that a certified EHR system is being implemented or is in place within the practice. There is no requirement to show MU. Providers in some states have already received the year-one incentive payment from Medicaid.

It should be noted that each state is different regarding the timing of when attestation is available. In Wisconsin, the attestation process has not yet been clarified and is not yet available.

What are You Waiting for?

For EHR users, 2011 is the time to begin cashing in on the incentive opportunity. Keep in mind 2012 is the final year to meet MU and collect the maximum incentive payment. If you wait until 2013 you will leave dollars on the table and may even face more challenging MU rules. So what are you waiting for? Cash in today.

For more information about EHR systems, MU and the Medicare and Medicaid incentives, contact Sue Denzine at sdenzine@KolbCo.com.

Reference: "10 Steps to Securing the Federal EHR Incentive Payment for Ambulatory Practitioners," Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, Inc. (HIMSS), Meaningful Use Center of Excellence Roundtable