Public And Private Financial Incentives

The Medicaid EHR Incentive Program will provide incentive payments to eligible professionals and eligible hospitals as they adopt, implement, upgrade, or demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology in their first year of participation and demonstrate meaningful use for up to five remaining participation years. The Medicaid EHR Incentive Program is voluntarily offered by individual states and territories and may begin as early as 2011, depending on the state. Eligible professionals can receive up to $63,750 over the six years that they choose to participate in the program. Eligible hospital incentive payments may begin as early as 2011,

“Go Paperless and Get Paid” is how the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) presents the incentives for electronic health records. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (U.S. Department of HHS) distributed more than $160 billion dollars to “improve and preserve health care, health information technology, community health, and prevention initiatives” (United States Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2014e). Likewise, the ONC offers “Health IT Adoption Programs” through the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, seeking to advance the American health care delivery system and to improve patient care through an unique investment towards health information technology (HHS, 2014d). Additionally, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allows the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to reward eligible hospitals and professionals with monetary incentives as they implement, adopt, or upgrade and demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology (HHS, 2014b). The Electronic Health Records Improvement Act (H.R. 1331) introduced by the United States House of Representative Diane Black is a bill to further improve the nation’s health care adoption of health information technology.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), is legislation aimed at the adoption and “meaningful use” of health information technology. CMS was authorized to establish incentive programs for eligible Medicare and Medicaid providers who adopt, implement, upgrade, or “meaningfully use” certified electronic health records (EHR). The term “meaningful use” is an acknowledgement that improved health care is not the product of technology but a method to exchange and use health information to support clinical decisions at the point of care.

Under the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, or the Stimulus Act”), certain eligible providers are eligible for financial incentives for following and documenting “meaningful use” of a certified electronic medical record system. According to the HRSA, “in July 2010, the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a final rule which established three phases of the EHR Incentive Program. The three stages of Meaningful Use are designed to support eligible professionals and hospitals with implementing and using EHRs in a meaningful way to help improve the quality and safety of the nation’s healthcare system.” The end point here is not that having an electronic medical record will allow for a

In July 2010 CMS Centers of Medicaid and Medicare services published a final rule which established three phases of the EHR Incentive Program. The Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program provides financial incentives for the “meaningful use” (MU) of certified Electronic Health Record technology to improve patient care. 36$ billion was authorized.

So much so that our political leaders and President Barack Obama have created a stimulus package called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Within this legislature, improvements to our healthcare industry and systems have been made with long-term financial savings in mind. As technology and uniformed data was becoming the standard in healthcare, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act has accelerated the speed. “The number of certified EHR vendors in the United States has increased from 605,6 to more than 10007 since mid-2008” (Sitting and Singh, 2012). Healthcare organizations now have no choice but to invest in a new

A significant investment to encourage the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) by healthcare providers was made by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The EHR Incentive Program, which financially rewards providers for using EHRs and meeting all CMS program requirements, was launched by CMS in the year 2011. All healthcare providers (private or public) are required to adopt and demonstrate ‘meaningful use’ of electronic health records for maintaining their existing Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement levels (Cite). A set of penalties for healthcare providers who fail to meet the deadline have already been defined by the U.S. government. Healthcare providers failing to introduce EHR systems by the year 2015 will experience a one percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements in that year, a two percent reduction in the year 2016, a three percent reduction in the year 2017, followed by a reduction of up to a 95 percent reduction in reimbursements over a period of

In efforts to reform the United States healthcare system and create a nationally unified data exchange system the federal government has established an incentive program to eligible professionals and hospitals. The federal government has turned to certified electronic health record (EHR) technology to help facilitate the process of broadening health IT infrastructures. The federal government views EHR system used in meaningful ways as the key to reforming the healthcare systems. Meaningful use of the EHR systems can also improve the overall quality of healthcare, insure patient safety, as well as reduce the cost of healthcare to individuals (Bigalke & Morris, 2010, p. 116).

In today’s society, the accuracy of health information, the availability of health records, and the professional resources in which one live are vital in decision making for health conditions. Meaningful Use (MU) is a program developed by CMS Medicare and Medicaid that awards, incentives in the health care industry in which the certified electronic health records (EHRs) are used to improve patient care (Practice Fusion, 2016). These incentives are for professionals that care for about 30% of their adult patient volume or 20% of their children’s volume for Medicare and Medicaid patients (CMS, 2016). In addition, adjusting from paper charts to electronic charts of patient’s information is beneficial for MU. Furthermore, the American

Prior to the federal mandate of EHR, research continued to show the fallacies of the healthcare system like the report published from the Institute of medicine, stating that “medical errors are the 8th leading cause of deaths in the U.S. and cost approximately forty billion dollars a year” (Overview, 2012). This was one of many indicators that healthcare needed to be reformed and in 2009, the president signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or HITECH Act, which mandated that all healthcare providers must comply and begin to transition to electronic medical records (EMR) and demonstrate “meaningful use.” This act set up a timeline, which established that practices and hospitals needed to be up and running with EMR in order to continue receiving reimbursements from federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 identified three main components of meaningful use: the use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner, electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of care, and the use of technology to submit clinical outcomes and quality measures (Heath Resources and Service Administration, n.d.). ARRA includes many measures to modernize our nation’s infrastructure, with the “Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act” being an example. The HITECH Act is an effort led by Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) in support of electronic health records and meaningful use (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC 2016). According to Galbraith (2013), the HITECH Act aims to promote the use of EHRs by providing over $27 billion in monetary incentives for health care providers that become “meaningful users”. CMS uses these core objectives to determine if a health care provider has satisfied meaningful use and is eligible to receive financial incentives (Galbraith, 2013).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) states that in order to realize meaningful use of the EHR technology, healthcare providers are obliged to apply the technology in a approach that enriches quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery; ebbs healthcare inconsistencies; involves patients and families; enriches care coordination; expands population and public health; and guarantees sufficient privacy and security guards for personal health information. (U.S Department of Health and

In 2009, more than $30 billion dollars in incentives was allocated by congress for hospitals to institute meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) by 2011 (Adler-Milstein, Bates, & Jha, 2011) (Murphy, 2010). The Meaningful Use Act is a complicated principle that is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) as well as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act.

The road to patient-centered care was paved with the passing of the HITECH act, which authorized incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid to clinicians and hospitals when they use EHRs privately and securely to achieve specified improvements in care delivery. If providers do not become meaningful users of EHRs by 2015, penalties will be triggered through reduced Medicare payments. These provisions aim to create a nationwide electronic health system that is efficient and secure to improve health outcomes and lower the cost of healthcare. To accomplish these goals, the federal government allotted $19.2 billion of funding to promote the adoption and meaningful use of interoperable health information technology and electronic health records (EHRs).

Instead of using paper based records, technology allows physicians to use the electronic medical record (EMR) that improves the quality of programs. By using the EMR, this is not easy nor is it low cost. Physicians’ have to use this method as their daily task. There are some barriers that has been identified with the use of the EMR by the physicians we will discuss. There will be some suggestions made that might can help the policy interventions to overcome the barriers. This will include the support system of work/practice including electronic clinical data exchange, and financial rewards for quality improvement. (Sim, 2004)