Watch your mailbox: CMS will be notifying providers by letter that they are subject to a 1% pay cut in 2015 for not attesting to meaningful use for 2013.

Beginning Jan. 1, the roughly quarter-million eligible providers who failed to attest to meaningful use by the reporting deadline of Oct. 3, 2014, will see a reduction in Medicare reimbursement for the duration of the 2015 calendar year. The penalty for providers is scheduled to increase by a rate of 1% in subsequent calendar years – to 2% in 2016, 3% in 2017, 4% in 2018 and 5% in 2019 – unless the eligible professionals attest, CMS states.

The 257,000 providers facing the Medicare payment adjustment are likely a mix of providers that have never attested and those who have attested in previous years but, for one reason or another, decided not to attest in 2013, says Todd Searls, executive director, Wide River LLC, Lincoln, Neb. While federal incentives have helped mitigate the cost of implementing an electronic health record, those incentives have grown smaller every year since 2012.

Providers must attest to meaningful use every year to avoid the payment penalty. If, by oversight or error, you receive a letter signaling a pay cut, CMS offers a reconsideration application, which must be submitted no later than Feb. 28, 2015, for review. Go here to learn more: http://cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EHRIncentivePrograms/PaymentAdj_Hardship.html.  

Recent shifts in Medicare payment policy have created multiple avenues for primary care providers to get paid for monitoring services or other activities that occur outside of a face-to-face encounter.

If you haven’t yet attested for meaningful use, you’ll face a 1% payment adjustment in 2015 – yet the penalty might be less costly than investing in an electronic health record (EHR) system.  To figure out what makes sense for your practice, assess the impact on your bottom line.