Medicare officials have extended Stage 2 of the "meaningful use" Electronic Health Record Incentive Program through the end of 2016.
The change, announced on Dec. 6, means that the earliest that physicians will progress to Stage 3 of the meaningful use requirements will be in January 2017. Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are still developing the Stage 3 requirements and expect to issue a proposed rule sometime in the fall of 2014.
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Medicare officials have extended Stage 2 of the "meaningful use" Electronic Health Record Incentive Program through the end of 2016.
The extension primarily affects physicians who began attesting to meaningful EHR use in 2011 and 2012. Those physicians were scheduled to advance to Stage 3 in 2016, after 2 years of working on Stage 2. The change means that they will have an additional year at Stage 2.
"The goal of this change is twofold: First, to allow CMS and [the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology] to focus efforts on the successful implementation of the enhanced patient engagement, interoperability, and health information exchange requirements in Stage 2; and second, to utilize data from Stage 2 participation to inform policy decisions for Stage 3," Robert Tagalicod, director of the office of e-Health Standards and Services at the CMS, and Dr. Jacob Reider, acting National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, wrote in a blog post announcing the change.
Over the last several months, a growing number of physician organizations and some lawmakers have called on the government to give physicians more time to meet Stage 2 requirements, saying that pushing forward with the aggressive timetable would leave many rural physicians behind.
"This new proposed timeline tracks ongoing conversations we at CMS and [the Office of the National Coordinator] have had with providers, consumers, health care associations, EHR developers, and other stakeholders in the health care industry," Mr. Tagalicod and Dr. Reider wrote. "This timeline allows for enhanced program analysis of Stage 2 data to inform the improvements in care delivery outcomes in Stage 3."
But Thomas A. Leary, vice president for government relations at HIMSS, said that while the extension of Stage 2 meaningful use is a positive step, his organization still wants to see Medicare officials give physicians a few more months to report on their first year of Stage 2 implementation. The extra time would help physicians, hospitals, and vendors who are having difficulty upgrading to the 2014 EHR certification requirements, according to HIMSS.
mschneider@frontlinemedcom.com
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