MU payments top $24B

The federal government has now paid out more than $24 billion in incentives through the Meaningful Use program, National Coordinator for Health IT, Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, said at a Federal Trade Commission event.

Back in 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimated that $22.5 billion would cover all EHR incentive programs, which was a decrease from its 2009 estimate of about $27 billion.

Payments under the Medicare program are scheduled to continue through 2016, while incentive payments under the Medicaid portion of the program could continue through 2020.

The $24 billion does not include the Medicaid investments that are going on now and will continue until 2020," DeSalvo noted. She estimated that future Medicaid incentive payments could total an additional $16 billion.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is working on how to gather information from providers that are not currently eligible for the MU program, including behavioral health facilities and long-term care facilities. This has been an ongoing topic during the monthly Health IT Policy Committee meetings.

"We still have some pretty important gaps in the capture of good health information," she said. "There are many more in the care continuum where, frankly, some of the sickest of the sick of our community are receiving services and we’re not yet able to capture information in a standardized way."