Health IT Policy Committee: EHR incentive program activity on upswing

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) saw an increasing number of entities sign onto its EHR incentive program, reported Robert Anthony, CMS health insurance specialist, at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC’s) Health IT Policy Committee meeting on May 7. He added that the program's budget currently stands at $39 billion.

“March was a big month, we continue to progress,” he said, noting that this past month the program gained 1,268 Medicare eligible professionals (261,367 total), 4,655 Medicaid eligible professionals (124,657 total), and 34 hospitals (4,333 total).

Of all 5,011 eligible hospitals, 76.99 percent are paid registrants while 23.01 percent have not received incentive payments.

Anthony said that non-participating hospitals most challenged at joining the program at this time are those in rural areas or those facing resource issues. He said CMS and ONC are investigating these hurdles to participation, and have met with the American Hospital Association and representatives from rural or critical access hospitals to look at ways to remove barriers.

ONC Health IT Coordinator Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, said that ONC  is working to educate non-participating hospitals on different financial opportunities, such as grants, that would enable them to meet Meaningful Use (MU) regulations. “There are untouched resources available for this population. We’re getting out there and making sure they know where resources lie,” he said.

Almost half of all eligible professionals who can participate in the program are receiving a payment, Anthony said.

As of March, Anthony reported the following statistics:

• Almost 77 percent of all eligible hospitals have received an EHR incentive payment for either Meaningful Use or Adoption, Implementation, Upgrading;
• Approximately 42 percent of Medicare eligible professionals are meaningful users of EHRs;
• About 46 percent of Medicaid and Medicare eligible professionals have made a financial commitment to an EHR; and
• Over 245,000 Medicare and Medicaid eligible professionals have received an EHR payment.

April estimates also show an uptick of registrants and entities receiving payments, he said. “April is going to be a very large month," he said, noting that during April 150 hospitals attested and received payment as new participants.

Anthony also shared the most popular menu objectives: drug formulary, immunization registries and patient lists. Looking at 90-day performance data, he said the agency has seen consistently high scores for thresholds for objectives in particular with computerized physician order entry, e-prescribing and clinical summaries.

“We’ve seen a consistently high performance, well above what threshold requires,” he said.