Meaningful Use Final Rule Offers Some Changes and Flexibility

Health and Human Services (HHS) released the final rule on meaningful use on Tuesday July 13, 2010. The 864-page final rule, which is many weeks late from the expected delivery details the qualifications health care providers must meet to achieve the meaningful use of electronic health records.  Meaningful Use compliance will allow physicians and hospitals to qualify for thousands of dollars in stimulus funding incentives for the adoption of electronic health records.

David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator for health information technology, said that the final rule is different from the proposed rule issued last January: It lets providers have some flexibility in choosing which measures to use for qualifications.

He said the proposed rule requires physicians to comply with 23 measures, and for hospitals 25 measures. HHS received over 2,000 comments on the rule, many containing requests for greater flexibility in determining how providers may qualify.

Key changes in the final CMS rule include:

  • Providing condition-specific patient education resources for both EPs (eligible providers) and eligible hospitals and the objective of recording advance directives for eligible hospitals, in line with recommendations from the Health Information Technology Policy Committee.
  • Greater flexibility with respect to eligible professionals and hospitals in meeting and reporting certain objectives for demonstrating meaningful use.  The final rule divides the objectives into a “core” group of required objectives and a “menu set” of procedures from which providers may choose any five to defer in 2011-2012.  This gives providers latitude to pick their own path toward full EHR implementation and meaningful use.
  • A definition of a hospital-based EP as one who performs substantially all of his or her services in an inpatient hospital setting or emergency room only, which  conforms to the Continuing Extension Act of 2010
  • CAHs (critical access hospitals) within the definition of acute care hospital for the purpose of incentive program eligibility under Medicaid.

The HITECH Act states that payments for Medicare providers may begin no sooner than October 2010 for eligible hospitals and January 2011 for EPs. The final rule aligns the Medicare and Medicaid program start dates.

Key steps in the implementation timeline include:

  • ONC began accepting applications from entities that seek approval as an ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB) on July 1, 2010.
  • ONC projects that certified EHR software will be available for purchase by hospitals and eligible professionals by fall, 2010
  • Registration by both EPs and eligible hospitals with CMS for the EHR incentive program will begin in January 2011.  Registration for both the Medicare and Medicaid incentive programs will occur at one virtual location, managed by CMS.
  • For the Medicare program, attestations may be made starting in April 2011 for both EPs and eligible hospitals.
  • Medicare EHR incentive payments will begin in mid May 2011.
  • States will be initiating their incentive programs on a rolling basis, subject to CMS approval of the State Medicaid HIT plan, which details how each State will implement and oversee its incentive program.

A CMS/ONC fact sheet on the rules is available on the CMS Web site.

Michael F. Arrigo

Michael Arrigo, an expert witness, and healthcare executive, brings four decades of experience in the software, financial services, and healthcare industries. In 2000, Mr. Arrigo founded No World Borders, a healthcare data, regulations, and economics firm with clients in the pharmaceutical, medical device, hospital, surgical center, physician group, diagnostic imaging, genetic testing, health I.T., and health insurance markets. His expertise spans the federal health programs Medicare and Medicaid and private insurance. He advises Medicare Advantage Organizations that provide health insurance under Part C of the Medicare Act. Mr. Arrigo serves as an expert witness regarding medical coding and billing, fraud damages, and electronic health record software for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has valued well over $1 billion in medical billings in personal injury liens, malpractice, and insurance fraud cases. The U.S. Court of Appeals considered Mr. Arrigo's opinion regarding loss amounts, vacating, and remanding sentencing in a fraud case. Mr. Arrigo provides expertise in the Medicare Secondary Payer Act, Medicare LCDs, anti-trust litigation, medical intellectual property and trade secrets, HIPAA privacy, health care electronic claim data Standards, physician compensation, Anti-Kickback Statute, Stark law, the Affordable Care Act, False Claims Act, and the ARRA HITECH Act. Arrigo advises investors on merger and acquisition (M&A) diligence in the healthcare industry on transactions cumulatively valued at over $1 billion. Mr. Arrigo spent over ten years in Silicon Valley software firms in roles from Product Manager to CEO. He was product manager for a leading-edge database technology joint venture that became commercialized as Microsoft SQL Server, Vice President of Marketing for a software company when it grew from under $2 million in revenue to a $50 million acquisition by a company now merged into Cincom Systems, hired by private equity investors to serve as Vice President of Marketing for a secure email software company until its acquisition and multi $million investor exit by a company now merged into Axway Software S.A. (Euronext: AXW.PA), and CEO of one of the first cloud-based billing software companies, licensing its technology to Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: CTXS). Later, before entering the healthcare industry, he joined Fortune 500 company Fidelity National Financial (NYSE: FNF) as a Vice President, overseeing eCommerce solutions for the mortgage banking industry. While serving as a Vice President at Fortune 500 company First American Financial (NYSE: FAF), he oversaw eCommerce and regulatory compliance technology initiatives for the top ten mortgage banks and led the Sarbanes Oxley Act Section 302 internal controls I.T. audit for the company, supporting Section 404 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act. Mr. Arrigo earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. Before that, he studied computer science, statistics, and economics at the University of California, Irvine. His post-graduate studies include biomedical ethics at Harvard Medical School, biomedical informatics at Stanford Medical School, blockchain and crypto-economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and training as a Certified Professional Medical Auditor (CPMA). Mr. Arrigo is qualified to serve as a director due to his experience in healthcare data, regulations, and economics, his leadership roles in software and financial services public companies, and his healthcare M&A diligence and public company regulatory experience. Mr. Arrigo is quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, Kaiser Health News, Consumer Affairs, National Public Radio (NPR), NBC News Houston, USA Today / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Medical Economics, Capitol ForumThe Daily Beast, the Lund Report, Inside Higher Ed, New England Psychologist, and other press and media outlets. He authored a peer-reviewed article regarding clinical documentation quality to support accurate medical coding, billing, and good patient care, published by Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and published in Healthcare I.T. News. Mr. Arrigo serves as a member of the board of directors of a publicly traded company in the healthcare and data analytics industry, where his duties include: member, audit committee; chair, compensation committee; member, special committee.

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