AMA holds steady on MU stance

The American Medical Association (AMA) continues to call for the governmnt to halt penalties in the Meaningful Use (MU) program, saying that full interoperability, which is not widely available, is necessary to achieve the goals of EHRs.

In response to the low number of organizations that have successfully attested to Stage 2, AMA joined with other organizations to urge policymakers to take immediate action to fix the MU program by adding more flexibility and shortening the reporting period to help physicians avoid penalties.    

“The AMA has been calling for policymakers to refocus the Meaningful Use program on interoperability for quite some time,” said AMA President-elect Steven J. Stack, MD, in a release. “The whole point of the Meaningful Use incentive program was to allow for the secure exchange of information across settings and providers and right now that type of sharing and coordination is not happening on a wide scale for reasons outside physicians’ control. Physicians want to improve the quality of care and usable, interoperable electronic health records are a pathway to achieving that goal.”

The organization also cited certification of products and the cost of those certified products as a challenge for physicians trying to meet MU requirements. "The extensive amount of time it takes for vendors to develop new, mandatory elements of EHRs and the lack of flexibility in the certification process are leading to late deliveries. That makes it impossible for many physicians to report for the whole year, a requirement for receiving an incentive," according to the release. And, vendors must first focus on MU development requirements rather than meeting physicians' needs.