The stage 2 meaningful use final rule makes it official that the second phase of attestation for electronic health records (EHR) incentive payments will begin no sooner than 2014.
CMS also finalized that eligible providers (EPs) must register and attest for stage 1 meaningful use by Oct. 1, 2014, to avoid a penalty in 2015.
The rule upholds most of the proposed menu and core measures, but it does factor in commenter concerns about burdensome requirements by lowering a few of the attestation thresholds. Among the changes:
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A reduction to 5% the percentage of patients who have to access health information online and communicate with providers. Two new core objectives requiring patients to access their health information through an online portal had originally required at least 10% of patients to access their information online and at least 10% of patients communicating with providers through secure online messages.
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A proposed measure that required a summary of care record be generated for 65% of transitions of care and referrals has been reduced to 50% in the final rule.
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CMS lifted the organization- and vendor-affiliation components of a proposed measure requiring you to electronically transmit a summary of care record from your EHR to an outside organization with a different EHR vendor. The threshold remains at 10% of transitions of care and referrals, but CMS now but will require only one instance of an electronic transmittal to a different EHR vendor.
The full rule is available at http://www.ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2012-21050_PI.pdf, or to read a CMS fact sheet, go to http://tinyurl.com/8gwz68h.
For more information, see next week’s issue of Part B News or go to www.partbnews.com. – Ben Penn (bpenn@decisionhealth.com)