The American Academy of Family Physicians is calling for significant changes to "meaningful use" criteria that will be used to determine whether health care providers are eligible for federal subsidies for health IT usage, Modern Healthcare reports.
In a seven-page letter to acting CMS Administrator Charlene Frizzera, Ted Epperly, chair of AAFP's board of directors, wrote that the group agrees with many of the criteria's stated goals, but urged CMS to reconsider:
- Requirements to report computerized physician order entry measures that he maintains could force health workers to manually enter results from laboratories that do not have an interoperable interface;
- A requirement that a patients' health information be shared with them within 48 hours; and
- Language that requires physicians to meet all of the proposed requirements to receive incentive payments.
In addition, Epperly asserts that the term "health information" is used throughout the proposed criteria but is never defined explicitly (Robeznieks, Modern Healthcare, 3/7).