The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a new timeline to meet the requirements of its meaningful-use incentive program for adopting electronic health records (EHRs).
Announced on Dec. 6, the timeline calls for Stage 2 of the program to be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 to begin in 2017 for providers that have finished at least two years in Stage 2.y allowing more time, software developers will have more time to create and distribute EHR applications that conform to the meaningful-use requirements, according to Robert Tagalicod, director of the Office of E-Health Standards and Services at CMS, and Dr. Jacob Reider, acting national coordinator for health information technology at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, which is a division of HHS.
“The goal of this change is twofold: First, to allow CMS and ONC 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,” Tagalicod and Reider said in a statement.
The addition time allows providers to focus on improving exchange of health information, which is a focus of Stage 2. Stage 1 focused on creating health information, and Stage 3 addresses the effort to improve health outcomes.
CMS expects to release a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on Stage 3.
Although nine out of 10 hospitals and eight in 10 eligible health care professionals have registered for the federal government’s electronic health record (EHR) incentive program, doctors will have more time to implement the program.
It may not be enough, however, according to IT industry insiders.
“While we appreciate the government’s response to Stage 2 timing, the current timeline only allows 12 months,” Tom Leary, vice president of government relations at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), a nonprofit dedicated to improving health care through technology, wrote in a blog post. “Given the challenges some providers, hospitals, and vendors are experiencing upgrading to the 2014 certification, we still need the government to provide the 18 month window to attest to one quarter during year one of meaningful use Stage 2.”
The addition time to align EHR applications with meaningful use provides a “release value” for health care providers but keeps the pressure on IT vendors, Shahid Shah, CEO of IT consulting firm Netspective Communications and author of The Healthcare IT Guy blog, told CruxialCIO in an email.
“The new timeline provides much-needed relief from attestation and other 2014 deadlines so that CIOs can concentrate on not just getting the systems implemented but getting them implemented right,” Shah explained. “There’s a lot on CIOs’ plates right now, and they now have a little extra time to adopt to major new workflow and data-collection challenges imposed by MU2 [meaningful use Stage 2].
With the extra time provided by CMS to adopt EHR applications to the Stage 2 requirements, hospital CIOs should reprioritize projects that have been pushed aside by goals of conforming to the meaningful-use guidelines, Shah said. Priorities should include getting IT systems to conform to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) – 10 claims code set as well as connecting EHR systems to health information exchanges (HIEs), Shah advised.
