The stage is set

Mary Stevens, Editor

Seeing the final rule for meaningful use published in the Federal Register on Wednesday must have been gratifying to its creators. After all, as Karen Trudel, deputy director of the Office of E-Health Standards & Services at CMS, stated it, “we started this process in February 2009. In government terms, being able to go from a piece of statute to an 800-plus-page final rule in that amount of time is something like the speed of light.”

Trudel made her comments during the HIT Standards Committee’s July meeting, which highlighted what has changed in the final rule and why, as well as what stayed the same from the NPRM to the final rule. Presenters from the committee's enrolllment and clinical quality workgroups also offered more clarification on meaningful use requirements, eligible professionals and patient volumes, among other things.

The next step is getting from policies to programs and collecting the data to determine where the biggest pain points are for Stage 1 meaningful users. “Stage 2” also entered most of the conversations in Wednesday’s update.

Getting the word out is also a top priority, and CMS and the ONC kicked off a series of training programs about the EHR incentive programs, with more to come.

Meanwhile, in the financial arena, the news was mostly good as healthcare IT vendors announced their quarterly results. For companies from 3M to Siemens and others, the fiscal picture looked even better when compared to the year-ago quarter. SRS and Ingenix led the week’s partnership news, and companies such as Cegedim seem to be in more of a buying mood.

In addition, Vestar Capital Partners has signed a definitive agreement for a Vestar affiliate to acquire all outstanding shares of independent healthcare ratings company HealthGrades. The deal is valued at approximately $294 million. Not so fast, say two law firms that plan to investigate the proposed acquisition.

For physicians in some areas of the country, the picture isn’t as rosy. The American Medical Group Association’s (AMGA) 2010 Medical Group Compensation and Financial survey found that, while most specialties saw modest increases in compensation in 2009, many provider organizations continue to operate at a significant loss with declining reimbursements.

“Our current transaction-based reimbursement system is largely indifferent to these results and to the efforts of medical groups to elevate the standard of care in the U.S.,” said Donald W. Fisher, PhD, president and CEO of AMGA.

Now that Stage 1 is in the books, literally, it’s time to see if the federal efforts will recognize some of these efforts.

Mary Stevens, Editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com