HITPC: CMS reports $16.5B in EHR incentive payments

As of the end of September, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has doled out approximately $16.5 billion in EHR incentive payments to 325,124 unique eligible professionals (EPs) and hospitals, CMS Health Insurance Specialist Robert Anthony reported to the Health IT Policy Committee.

Of that total, $1.6 billion were dispersed during the first nine months of 2013.

“We expect to see an upward trend in December and January,” Anthony said, noting a dramatic uptick during these months in years past.

An increasing number of hospitals are coming closer to attestation in Meaningful Use (MU), he said. He added that the shutdown did not affect attestations as all of the systems remained active throughout its duration.

Also reported:

• Approximately 83 percent of eligible hospitals have received an incentive payment
• More than eight out of ten hospitals have made a financial commitment to an EHR
• About 56 percent of Medicare EPs are meaningful users of EHRs
• About 73 percent of Medicaid EPs have received an incentive payment
• More than 60 percent of Medicare and Medicaid EPs have financially invested in an EHR

Looking at core measures for hospitals that have participated in the program for three consecutive years, he said, “we’re seeing consistently high levels of performance.” He also said data show that so far in 2013, hospitals have achieved a higher threshold of performance compared to their second year in the program.

In the area of menu objectives, he reported some high performance. Hospitals fared the worst at delivering reportable lab results to public health agencies and submission of syndrome surveillance data. In their third year, hospitals achieved considerable gains with immunization data registries, he said.

Jennifer King, research and evaluation branch chief of the ONC's Office of Economic Analysis, Evaluation and Modeling, provided data on hospitals’ attestation to Stage 1 MU by 2014 edition certification status of primary vendor.

As of October 21, 84 percent of eligible hospitals that have attested to Stage 1 MU used a primary vendor that had any 2014 edition product. The size, type and location of the hospitals did not reveal much variation, although smaller and critical access hospitals were less likely to use a 2014 edition product.

For EPs, 69 percent that have attested to Stage 1 used a primary vendor that had any 2014 edition product. Urban professionals tended to use certified 2014 products only slightly more than their rural counterparts.