Federal officials paint rosier picture of MU Stage 2 attestations

Although reports so far on Meaningful Use Stage (MU) 2 progress appear bleak, federal health officials counter that the majority of providers eligible to attest to MU Stage 2 already have done so.

At the Jan. 13 Health IT Policy Committee meeting, Dawn Heisey-Grove, public health analyst at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, pointed out that not all providers were permitted to attest to Stage 2 in 2014.

To be eligible, providers must have completed two years of attestation for MU Stage 1. To date, only 56 percent of eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals and 42 percent of eligible professionals meet this threshold, she said.

As of the end of November, 16,455 eligible professionals and 1,681 eligible hospitals have attested for MU Stage 2 for 2014. When taken into consideration that not all providers were able to attest to Stage 2, these data reflect progress made in previous years, she said.

Nearly eight in 10 Stage 2-eligible hospitals have attested to MU Stage 2 as of the end of November. As attestations typically roll in last-minute, "we expect a lot more attestations to come in during December," Heisey-Grove said.

Meanwhile, as of November 2014, 60 percent of Stage 2-eligible professionals have attested to MU Stage 2. She also reported that among those Stage 2-eligible professionals that have attested to Stage 1, taking advantage of the flexibility rule option, 25 percent attested using 2014 certified EHR technology; 7 percent used a combination of 2011 and 2014 certified EHR technology; and 68 percent used 2011 certified EHR technology.

While eligible hospitals had until the end of 2014 to attest, eligible providers have through the end of February 2015. She anticipates a bump in attestations during these final months as typically happens every year.

"It's very encouraging to see that providers were able to implement software and demonstrate Stage 2," said Elisabeth Myers, head of policy and research at CMS' Office of eHealth Standards and Services, during the presentation. "Our biggest concern is the availability of software to participate in the programs."

In other news presented at the meeting, Myers reported that to date, 428,317 unique providers have received incentive payments through the MU program as of the end of November. About $8.7 billion has been paid out to Medicaid providers and $17.3 billion has been paid to Medicare providers.