By Dr. Seth Flam, board certified in Family Practice and
co-founder and CEO of HealthFusion
CMS has released a proposed rule that would dramatically
change the Meaningful Use program, starting in 2015. Here are the 5 most
important proposed changes to the rule and ramifications of these proposed
changes:
1. Reduced Reporting
Period in 2015 – The EHR reporting period that was targeted to be a full
year in 2015 would be reduced to a 90-day (not calendar quarter) period based
on the calendar year.
2. The Most Difficult
Patient Engagement Measures are Relaxed – The Exchange of Secure Messages
with patients, where the previous threshold for Meaningful Use Stage 2 was 5
percent, is now reduced to just having the capability to exchange secure
messages with patients. Essentially, having an EHR Certified to the 2014 Stage
2 standards will get you a passing grade on this measure.
In addition, the Patient Action to View, Download, or
Transmit Health Information measure where the previous threshold was 5 percent
threshold for Stage 2, now only requires that just 1 patient seen by the
provider during the EHR reporting period views, downloads, or transmits his or
her health information to a third party.3. Simplifies the Attestation Process by Removing Measures that are Redundant, Duplicative, or had already reached a very high performance level (“topped out.”) – CMS identified a set of measures that met the Redundant, Duplicative or Topped Out criteria and now proposes that providers no longer need to attest to those measures. See the table below.
In addition, Stage 1 and Stage 2 providers will attest to
the same measures, but by using new exception rules for Stage 1 providers and
different thresholds than their Stage 2 counterparts, Stage 1 did not become
more difficult.
4. Structural
Requirements the Concept of Core and Menu – Because of the restructuring of
measures, the concept of core and menu will be deprecated in favor of choices
within certain objectives; for example: the Public Health Objective. Now for
Stage 1 providers, three current menu objectives would now be required and for
Stage 2 one current hospital menu objective would now be a required objective.
These objectives are as follows:
• Stage 1 Menu: Perform Medication Reconciliation
• Stage 1 Menu: Patient Specific Educational Resources
• Stage 1 Menu: Public Health Reporting Objectives
(multiple options)
• Stage 2
Menu Eligible Hospitals and CAHs Only: Electronic Prescribing
The new reporting structure is outlined in the tables below:
5. 2015 Will Be a
Backloaded Year – This proposed rule will have a 2-month comment period and
therefore we don’t expect the final rule until the third quarter. After the
final rule is published, EHR vendors will need to update their Meaningful Use
Report Cards and the measurement period options in their software. While there
may be a few 90-day reporting options available, we expect another year where
most providers will be reporting on the last quarter of the year.
Wondering what changes are proposed with regard to perhaps
the most difficult Stage 2 measure – the Electronic Exchange of PHRs via
Direct?? See future blog posts at HealthFusion.com/blog
Dr. Seth Flam is one of the founders of HealthFusion and serves as the
company's CEO and President. He is board certified in Family Practice and is
one of the creative forces behind MediTouch EHR.
