Finally! The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, along with the ONC, has released the final EHR meaningful use rule. There are a couple of important changes, one being they will ease the reporting requirements and allow 90 days for providers reporting period. The other big change is the number of objectives for eligible hospitals, which has been reduced from 20 down to 8. Clinical quality measures will stay the same for both hospitals and providers.
Also announced is that Stage 3 meaningful use will go on as planned, and not be delayed. They will however, extend the public comment period. After receiving over 2500 comments from industry participants, CMS made some much needed changes to the regulations.
- Give providers and state Medicaid agencies 27 months, until Jan. 1, 2018, to comply with the new requirements and prepare for the next set of system improvements.
- Give developers more time to create the next advancements in technology that CMS says will be easier to use and more appropriate to new models of care and access to data by consumers.
- Support provider exchange of health information and interoperable infrastructure for data exchange between providers and with patients.
- Give developers additional time to create the next advancements in technology that will be easier to use and more appropriate to new models of care and access to data by consumers.
- Address health information blocking and interoperability between providers.
Stage 3 Provisions
In 2017, Stage 3 requirements are optional, but providers who opt to start Stage 3 that year will have a 90-day reporting period. Come 2018, all providers must comply with Stage 3 regulations using a certified EHR.
According to a CMS fact sheet detailing the final rules, major provisions pertaining to Stage 3 meaningful use include:
- 8 objectives for eligible docs, eligible hospitals and CAHs: In Stage 3, more than 60 percent of the proposed measures require interoperability, up from 33 percent in Stage 2.
- Public health reporting with flexible options for measure selection.
- CQM reporting aligned with the CMS quality reporting programs.
- Finalize the use of application program interfaces that enable the development of new functionalities to build bridges across systems.
If you would like to access the final rule, Click Here.
