Tennessee, Pennsylvania to receive combined $4.1M for EHR incentives

Medicaid programs in Tennessee and Pennsylvania will receive federal matching funds for state planning activities necessary to implement the EHR incentive programs established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Tennessee will receive approximately $2.7 million in federal matching funds while Pennsylvania will receive $1.4 million.

According to CMS, ARRA provides a 90 percent federal match for state planning activities to administer the incentive payments to Medicaid providers, to ensure their proper payments through audits and to participate in statewide efforts to promote interoperability and meaningful use of EHR technology statewide and across the U.S.

Tennessee and Pennsylvania will use their federal matching funds for planning activities that include conducting a comprehensive analysis to determine the current status of health IT activities in each state, according to CMS.

As part of that process, the agency reported that the states will gather information on issues such as existing barriers to their use of EHRs, provider eligibility for EHR incentive payments and the creation of a state Medicaid health IT plan, which will define the states’ vision for its long-term health IT use.