EHR's Stage 2 meaningful use standards are out in fact sheet form and as a proposed rule.

Farzad Mostashari, U.S. National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, announced the proposed rule's impending release Thursday at the Healthcare Information and  Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference in Las Vegas, NV. The fact sheet and proposed rule came out Thurday evening.

Your providers are safe from the impending 27.4% cut to their Medicare payments set to hit March 1 thanks to Congress passing a temporary ‘doc fix’ Friday through the end of 2012.

The vote to extend the payroll tax holiday bill and keep the current $34.0376 conversion rate through Dec. 31 comes on the heels of intense debate among Congress members as to whether preventing the pay cut was fiscally sound.  The $150 billion bill failed to include deeper cuts requested by GOP Congress members but remained largely budget neutral.

Leaks out of Capitol Hill strongly suggest there'll be a Doc Fix 2 by Friday -- this one for 10 months. As for how Congress will pay for it, well...

The 10-month, through-end-of-2012  figure is cited so far by the National Journal, The Hill, DOTmed, and others, and seems solid. To pay for it, or at least pretend to pay for it, a cluster of program and provider cuts have been mentioned by tip sheets and news services. 

AMA just did its members a favor with Wellness Visit brochures that should dispel some of the confusion about what gets covered.

You could get more time to prepare for the industry-switch to ICD-10. CMS announced it would reconsider the current ICD-10 timeline in which 

the entire health care industry would have to comply by Oct. 1, 2013 at the AMA’s National Advocacy Conference in Washington Tuesday.

CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said the agency plans to “re-examine the pace” of implementing ICD-10, marking the first public indication that the 2013 implementation date is not as firm as CMS has repeatedly said it is.

“We want to work with you to make implementation successful,” Tavenner told conference attendees during her keynote address. “I'm committed to you today to work with you to re-examine the pace we implement ICD-10.”