Since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have yet to finalize a rule to ease compliance with Stages 1 and 2 of Meaningful Use, the American Medical Association is calling on the agency to create an automatic hardship exemption for physicians who did not have the opportunity to report successfully this year.

In April, CMS proposed modifications to Stages 1 and 2 of the program that reduced the reporting period from a full calendar year to 90 days. Stakeholders believed this was necessary since many physicians could not update systems, change products, or accommodate Internet outages or other disruptions under a 365-day reporting program, according to an AMA release. 

“The AMA welcomed and supported the proposed changes, but it’s now Oct. 1 and CMS has left physicians without any guidance or assurances that they will be capable of meeting program requirements before the end of the year,” said AMA President Steven J. Stack, MD. “The AMA has regularly stressed that CMS must finalize Meaningful Use modifications well ahead of Oct. 1 to provide the time that physicians need to plan for and accommodate these changes, yet CMS has continued to delay finalizing this rule. As a result, many physicians who were counting on this flexibility will be subject to financial penalties under the rules currently in place."

AMA is one of many groups that have been asking CMS to finalize the Meaningful Use rule modifications to shorten the 2015 reporting period from a full year to 90 consecutive days. Last month, the Medical Group Management Association issued a statement that the “window of time that CMS is leaving medical groups and vendors to adjust workflows and update systems is both unacceptable and unrealistic.”

Other than the recent news that the rule was submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for review, there has been no further update form CMS.