Hospitals boasting high retention rates in MU program, officials say

Retention rates for hospitals in the Meaningful Use (MU) program are strong, federal officials told the Health IT Policy Committee on Feb. 10.

Only 3-4 percent of the 4,993 U.S. hospitals have not registered or participated in the MU program, according to Dawn Heisey-Grove, public health analyst at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. “The vast majority of eligible hospitals have achieved Meaningful Use or are making progress towards Meaningful Use."

In all, nine out of 10 hospitals achieved MU by fiscal year 2014. Critical access hospitals progressed in the EHR incentive program at roughly the same rate as other hospitals. Children’s hospitals, which started later in the program, have the fewest number of attestations. Small rural hospitals with fewer than 100 beds attested at the same rate as the larger hospitals. However, smaller urban hospitals, many of which are specialty hospitals, had the lowest rates. “That is something we need to look into further," she said.

Retention rates also are high, Heisey-Grove said, noting that providers must complete two years of Stage 1 before progressing to Stage 2.

Of the hospitals in the 2011-2013 cohorts, 91 percent of those scheduled for Stage 1 and 89 percent of those scheduled for Stage 2 returned in 2014, she said. “If they skip a year, they are just skipping a year, not dropping out of the program entirely.”

Also, she said most of the 4,200 hospitals scheduled for MU Stage 2 next year are already using 2014 certified EHR technology and 2014 MU definitions.

In related news, Elisabeth Myers of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that a little over $28 billion has been divvied out in EHR payments. Through Feb. 1, 36,782 eligible professionals (EPs) have attested to MU Stage 2 and 91,033 EPs have attested to MU Stage 1. The number of EPs scheduled to attest to Stage 3 for the next program is 71,519.

For eligible hospitals, 2,275 have attested to MU Stage 1 and 1,815 have attested to MU Stage 2. Core performance across measures for MU Stage 2 is generally strong, she said.