Dive Brief:
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)released the final rule for Stage 3 Meaningful Use (MU) in October and opened a 60-day public comment period to receive additional feedback. Comments were due yesterday, and the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) both submitted comments the program should be delayed until 2019.
- AHA’s letter to CMS included recommendations to improve the structure of the program, increase flexibility, and realign the program to focus on “mature” standards.
- CHIME suggested CMS eliminate a 90-day reporting period for each year of the program; remove the pass/fail approach; eliminate the transitional year for meeting Stage 3 requirements in 2017 and extend the 2015 Edition Certified EHR Technology to 2018; streamline reporting redundancies; and focus on measures to advance patient care.
Dive Insight:
Tom Nickels, executive vice president of the AHA, wrote, “To reach the goal of EHR adoption…the EHR Incentive Program framework and timeframe must be reoriented to provide operational and strategic flexibility for participating providers to enable them to achieve our shared national vision of an e-enabled healthcare system.”
Charles Christian, chair of CHIME’s board of trustees, wrote, “We do not believe that the course laid out by CMS for Stage 3 will help us achieve some important goals, including better alignment of quality improvement efforts and widespread health information exchange. We need to let providers and vendors continue down the adoption curve and perfect systems that many are still putting in place.”
The American Medical Association (AMA) sent a letter to Congress last month requesting Stage 3 be stopped until Stage 2 can be reformed. Citing frustration of physicians in complying with burdensome requirements, the AMA warned that physicians may abandon the program.
