On Monday, 96 physician associations submitted a formal comment letter calling for CMS to scale back the requirements that health care providers must meet to demonstrate "meaningful use" of electronic health records, Modern Healthcare reports.
CMS recently released a notice of proposed rulemaking describing how health care providers can demonstrate meaningful use of EHRs to qualify for incentive payments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The American Medical Association, the Medical Group Management Association and 94 other health care provider groups sent the letter to acting CMS Administrator Charlene Frizzera (Robeznieks, Modern Healthcare, 3/16).
The 60-day public comment period on the meaningful use rule ended yesterday.
Physician Groups Offer Recommendations
In their letter, the medical groups urged CMS to drop its "all or nothing" approach to the meaningful use standards. Instead, they recommended requiring health care providers to meet five of the 25 proposed measures to receive the first year incentive payments.
In addition, the letter signatories called for CMS to:
- Adjust the definition of a hospital-based physician to increase eligibility for the incentive payments;
- Eliminate objectives that do not directly apply to EHR adoption, such as verifying insurance eligibility electronically (Commins, HealthLeaders Media, 3/15);
- Implement mechanisms to evaluate progress on meaningful use objectives and costs of EHR adoption;
- Include small physician practice representatives on the Health IT Policy Committee and its work groups;
- Provide physicians with feedback about their performance in meeting the meaningful use standards (Goedert [1], Health Data Management, 3/15); and
- Reduce the number of quality measure reporting requirements and permit physicians to document only three relevant measures (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 3/15).
The physician groups also expressed concern about the feasibility of the timelines for the incentive payment program (Modern Healthcare, 3/15).
MGMA Submits Comments
In related news, the Medical Group Management Association also submitted a separate letter calling for CMS to rework the Stage 1 criteria for meaningful use and extend the initial stage for an extra year, to 2013.
In its comments, MGMA recommended that Stage 2 begin in 2014 and Stage 3 -- when penalties would start being issued -- begin in 2016.
MGMA said the additional time would allow for further EHR certification, software development and testing (Goedert [2], Health Data Management, 3/15).