AMA releases blueprint for MU program
As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT gear up to release the proposed rule for Meaningful Use Stage 3, the American Medical Association released a blueprint with recommendations to improve EHR functionality for physicians and improve care for patients.
In a letter to both agencies, AMA put forth the following recommendations to move forward with MU:
- Adopting a more flexible approach for meeting MU to allow more physicians to successfully participate;
- Better aligning quality measure requirements, including reducing the reporting burden on physicians and helping relieve them from overlapping penalties;
- Ensuring quality measures and clinical decision support within the program are current to improve care for patients and ensure physicians are following the latest evidence; and
- Restructuring EHR certification to focus on key areas like interoperability.
The association also recommended simplifying the certification process to improve interoperability and usability, and making optional the most difficult objectives for physicians—including view, download and transmit, transitions of care and secure messaging.
“While more than 78 percent of physicians are using an EHR, thousands have not participated in the Meaningful Use program or attested to Stage 2, in large part because of the program's all-or-nothing approach. Physicians should not be required to meet measures that are not improving patient care or use systems that are decreasing practice efficiencies. Levying penalties unnecessarily will hinder physicians' ability to purchase and use new technologies and will hurt their ability to participate in innovative payment and delivery models that could improve the quality of care," said AMA President Robert M. Wah, MD, in a statement.
Access the letter (account required).