The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a number of changes to its meaningful use electronic health record (EHR) incentive programs, including proposals to shorten the EHR reporting period in 2016 and to eliminate provisions on clinical decision support (CDS) and computerized provider order entry (CPOE) in subsequent years.
Included as part of proposed changes to the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and the Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System, the proposals would provide for a 90-day reporting period for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) in 2016, down from a full calendar year for returning program participants. In proposed changes for modified stage 2 in 2017 as well as stage 3 in 2017 and 2018, the CDS and CPOE objectives and measurements would be eliminated. In addition, the reporting thresholds for a subset of the remaining objectives and measures would be lowered, generally to the modified stage 2 thresholds, CMS said.
"The proposal to reduce measure thresholds is intended to respond to input we have received from hospitals, hospital associations, health systems, and vendors expressing concerns about the established measures," CMS wrote in the Federal Register. "The proposed requirements focus on reducing hospital administrative burden, allowing eligible hospitals and CAHs attesting under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program to focus more on providing quality patient care, as well as focus on updating and optimizing [certified electronic health record technology] functionalities to sufficiently meet the requirements of the EHR Incentive Program and prepare for stage 3 of meaningful use."
CMS is also proposing a one-time significant hardship exception from the 2018 payment adjustment for certain eligible professionals who are new participants in the EHR incentive program in 2017 and are transitioning to the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System in 2017.
"We believe these proposals are responsive to additional stakeholder feedback received through both correspondence and in-person meetings and would result in continued advancement of certified EHR technology utilization, particularly among those eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and CAHs that have not previously achieved meaningful use, and result in a program more focused on supporting interoperability and data sharing for all participants under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs," CMS wrote.
