The HITECH Act, which was enacted as part of ARRA, promotes the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology. Subtitle D of the HITECH Act addresses the privacy and security concerns associated with the electronic transmission of health information. While the HITECH Act mirrors HIPAA, it elaborates with specific requirements
Flex-IT would negate the latest final rule from CMS, adjusting the program reporting timeline from a full year to any three-month quarter.
For many Electronic Medical Records companies, Meaningful Use Stage 2 and other requirements are so expensive and complex that they are struggling to meet the regulatory deadlines.
If your hospital is notified by CMS that is auditing your organization's  Meaningful Use (MU) attestation you will need a clear action plan and the advice of experienced people who…
Marilyn Tavenner, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spoke at HIMSS 2014 in Orlando Florida spoke about interoperability, and "reduced spending in healthcare." Continue to reward programs that provide value and quality. "Linking quality data, reporting, and cost of care to outcomes, patient quality for all care settings and tie that to payments." She also spoke about ICD-10, Meaningful Use Stage 2, Healthcare.gov, interoperability and details about several quality and privacy initiatives.
Despite recent writings by some law firms, a failed Meaningful Use audit ("final determination") is a serious affair, requiring the attesting organization to immediately pay 100% of the Meaningful Use incentive funds back to CMS. For a $500 million hospital system, for example, this is likely to be $millions.
By June 13, 2013 only three vendors are ready for inpatient, and three for ambulatory on the CMS website that shows which EHR vendors have their product certified for Meaningful Use under the 2014 Standard. This creates an issue for all Eligible Providers (EPs) who achieved meaningful use Stage 1. Unless their EHR vendor meets the Stage 2 requirements, those EPs no longer qualify for Meaningful Use stimulus dollars.
The College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME), proposed a one-year extension of Meaningful Use Stage 2 in response to Senators’ request for feedback on healthcare IT adoption. Note that an actual extension would requre an Act of Congress, according to the Stage 2 Final Rule.
We do not support a delay in ICD-10. The delay hurts not only those who have invested dutifully to meet the CMS mandate on time, but it hurts independent contractors, small businesses, and Healthcare IT vendors who fill knowledge gap in Covered Entities who don't have the staff internally to meet this mandate.
If The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is repealed it will be interesting to see if it is repealed in whole or in part. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) may excise the individual mandate requiring health insurance coverage, or it could strike it down entirely.
The HITECH Act provides incentives for Medicare and Medicaid providers to achieve Meaningful Use of Electronic Medical Records. Meaningful Use Assessment should include these phases and components:
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology published the latest list of electronic health record solutions, vendors and certifying bodies. This list is for Inpatient EHR only. Many health care providers have been distracted with electronic health record implementations and meaningful use and are just starting to work through HIPAA 5010 and ICD-10 issues now.