Premier Urges CMS To Release Final Stage 2 Rules by August

The Premier healthcare alliance has submitted comments urging the federal government to  publish final rules on Stage 2 of the meaningful use program by August or extend  Stage 1 of the program for an extra year, Healthcare IT News reports (Monegain, Healthcare  IT News, 5/2).

Background

Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who  demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health record  systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.

In February, CMS released a proposed rule outlining requirements for  hospitals and health care providers seeking to attest to Stage 2 of the  meaningful use program. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT  also released a proposed rule outlining standards and criteria  for the certification of EHRs under Stage 2 of the meaningful use program.

The deadline for submitting comments about the Stage 2 proposed rules is May  7 (iHealthBeat,  5/1).

Details of Premier’s Comments

Premier said that a failure to publish the Stage 2 final rules by August  would significantly compromise health care providers’ ability to meet Stage  2 requirements beginning in 2014. Premier said that if the Stage 2 rules are not  released by August, CMS should continue Stage 1 for another year and start  Stage 2 in 2015.

Premier also recommended that the federal government:

• Modify hospital eligibility requirements to ensure that hospitals with  multiple inpatient facilities can receive meaningful use incentive payments for  each facility;
• Adjust several core hospital objectives to ensure that they are appropriate  for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals;
• Assess whether the menu set of meaningful use objectives includes enough  feasible measures for the typical hospital;
• Avoid increasing the number of clinical quality measures that must be  reported in Stage 2; and
• Allow an exemption to payment adjustments for hospitals with an incumbent  EHR vendor that has failed to obtain timely certification of its relevant EHR  product (Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 5/2).

Source: iHealthBeat

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