257K EPs now face penalty for not meeting MU rules

The extended deadline for Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 attestation has come and gone but it apparently wasn't enough time for more than 257,000 eligible professionals who will receive a penalty starting Jan. 1 for failing to meet the requirements.

These EPs face a 1 percent penalty to their Medicare Physician Fee Schedule payments beginning Jan. 5, 2015, for failing to meet MU by Oct. 1, 2014, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) revealed during a press call Wednesday afternoon. Of those 257,000 EPs, 28,000 will receive a 2 percent penalty for failing to meet the threshold for e-prescribing.

The EPs will start receiving letters from CMS this week which include instructions on how to apply for further consideration if they feel the penalty is incorrect. EPs have until the end of February to apply.

"It's possible we could have made a mistake. We want to give people the opportunity to point that out to us," a CMS official said on the call.

CMS has approved hardship exemptions for about 55,000 EPs over the course of two application processes earlier this year. About 2,000 applicants were denied the exemption, because, according to agency officials, they had actually already met the MU threshold. Rather than risk a penalty they hedged their bets by applying for the exemption.

Those EPs who received hardship exemptions for 2015 penalties will have to reapply for 2016 hardship exemptions if they feel they still can't meet the threshold.

"We can only grant hardships on a case-by-case and annual basis," the official said.

Eligible hospitals operate on a fiscal year calendar and Just over 200 began facing Medicare reimbursement penalties as of Oct. 1.