Instead of a blog, Written one word at a time, I offer these MU observations, Written in rhyme. While I tried to be thorough, There’s much more I could say. For now this is it… Until another day. On the March Towards MU Stage 2 The day we have dreaded, Is where we are headed….

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website continues to grow with new resources. The latest is an everything-you-need-to-know guide to Stage 2 Meaningful Use set to start in 2014 for those eligible professionals and hospitals participating in the Medicare program that reported for Stage 1 in 2011–2012. EPs/EHs that attested to Stage 1 in 2013 (under…

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) announced an upgrade to the health IT dashboard so that it now includes summary data from the CMS EHR Incentive program (i.e. Meaningful Use Dashboard). The dashboard now includes six (6) categories of data and graphs as noted below. Be advised: depending on your connection…

The following is a letter circulated by CMS about the PQRS program reminding physicians that “it is not too late” to participate for 2012: It is not too late to start participating in the 2012 Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and potentially qualify to receive an incentive payment equal to 0.5% of an eligible professional’s…

The following is the text of a press release from CMS/ONC: More than 100,000 health care providers paid for using electronic health records CMS and ONC surpass 2012 goals for EHR adoption and use More than 100,000 healthcare providers are using electronic health records that meet federal standards and have benefitted from the Medicare and…

During the 2012 ACP annual meeting in New Orleans, I had an opportunity to field and respond to member questions on health IT. A selection of most frequently asked questions and answers are provided for your reference below. EHR Selection I have tried to purchase an EHR system but none of the vendors are returning…

Today’s the day… All comments are due to CMS and ONC regarding the NPRMs for Stage 2 of Meaningful Use (MU). Judging from off-the-record conversations with colleagues, CMS and ONC are likely to receive a barrage of comments from many different perspectives. Some of the likely areas of tension will be between and among: Technology advocates…

Meaningful Use Stage Criteria were released on February 23 for Eligible Professionals (EPs), Eligible Hospitals (EHs), and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs). Predictably, there has been wide coverage of the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). Here are some good resources to help AmericanEHR users get a good understanding of the proposed rule. Be sure to…

CMS just announced a “National Provider Call” for Monday, March 12th; 12:30pm ET – 2pm ET. Here’s the message that was sent via email: This National Provider Call will provide an overview of the proposed rule, so you can learn what you need to know to receive EHR incentive payments. (CMS plans to hold another…

CMS just posted the notice of proposed rule making (NPRM) for Meaningful Use Stage 2. Here is the link to the fact sheet; here is the link to the full document (455 pages). More to follow.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the January payment update to the EHR Incentive Program through January 2012. Here are some data from the EHR Incentive Payment Summary for January 2012. Medicare Data 22,937 Eligible Professionals (EP) received incentive payments $412,866,000 distributed Average per EP = $18,000 Top 4 Specialties: Family Medicine –…