On Tuesday, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal and Director of CMS' Office of e-Health Standards and Services Tony Trenkle defended the final rules on the "meaningful use" of electronic health records before a hearing of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, CQ HealthBeat reports.
Federal officials released the final rules on July 13. The 2009 economic stimulus package's health IT provisions allocate as much as $27 billion in incentive payments for health care providers who meaningfully use EHRs (Adams, CQ HealthBeat, 7/20).
Lessened Restrictions, Hospital Provision Criticized
Multiple health provider groups have lauded HHS' decision to ease some requirements of the proposed version of the rule.
However, some lawmakers and hospitals are questioning a provision to consider hospital systems with multiple facilities as one provider, rather than treating each facility as a separate hospital, for payment purposes (Lillis, "Healthwatch," The Hill, 7/20).
In addition, some Republicans on the subcommittee said the rules were too lenient for health care providers and questioned why federal officials weakened provisions included in earlier versions of the rule.
CMS has said the final rule offers more flexibility to health care providers (McCarthy, CongressDaily, 7/21).
Blumenthal reminded the panel that the meaningful use rule is the first of three sets of regulations and applies only to incentives granted before 2013. The two subsequent sets of rules will have more stringent requirements, Blumenthal told the panel (Long, NextGov, 7/20).
Concerns on Security, Reliability of Patient Data
Republican Reps. Wally Herger (Calif.) and Sam Johnson (Texas) questioned why the rules fail to require providers to exchange electronic health data in a secure way. Instead, the rules require health care providers to test systems for their ability to exchange information during the first rule phase.
Blumenthal responded that exchange systems are not yet ready for deployment in all parts of the country and said stricter rules would unfairly penalize health care providers in some regions.
Trenkle said that officials sought to stay consistent with Medicare payment policies in crafting the final rule (CQ HealthBeat, 7/20).
Herger also suggested that the eased requirements for electronic prescribing might allow physicians to focus on information from relatively healthy patients rather than from patients with more complicated health histories.
Meanwhile, Health Subcommittee Chair Pete Stark (D-Calif.) called the final rules "responsible" (CongressDaily, 7/21).