This week in health IT: Focus on federal mandates

Two of the biggest federal mandates facing providers this year were in the news this week—for good and bad reasons.

More than $19 billion has been paid out in Meaningful Use incentives to more than 440,000 providers. Approximately 88 percent of all eligible hospitals have received an EHR incentive payment so far, reported Robert Anthony, deputy director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of E-Health Standards and Services at the latest Health IT Policy Committee meeting.

And, as of Dec. 31, 2013, nearly 9 out of 10 eligible hospitals have made a financial commitment to an EHR. CMS also released the results of a 2013 National Electronic Health Records Survey, which revealed that of the physicians who intend to participate in the Meaningful Use program, 19 percent had adopted all 14 of the 17 Stage 2 Core objectives.

EHR adoption has been continually touted as the infrastructure needed to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare so these rates are encouraging.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, less than 10 percent of physician practices reported that they had made significant progress when rating their overall readiness for ICD-10 implementation. This is only a slight improvement from a June 2013 survey in which 4.7 percent said they had made significant progress.

In releasing the survey results, the Medical Group Management Association urged CMS to immediately take action to help ensure that physician practices can successfully undertake such a massive transition.

Do you think CMS should be doing more to help providers facilitate ICD-10 testing and preparation? Please share your thoughts.

Beth Walsh

Clinical Innovation + Technology editor