Get Your ARRA Stimulus Money, Learn More!

Submitted by cliew on Sat, 05/29/2010 - 17:42

Table of Content

Introduction of ARRA EHR Incentives
Meaningful Use of EHR
Certification Criteria of EHR
Request Free Live Web Demo!

Introduction

Waiting Room Solutions American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Medicare Medicaid Stimulus Incentive

ARRA 2009

Qualify for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Stimulus Incentive

The Waiting Room Solutions Sales and Development teams are actively working to capture the rapidly evolving government requirements for "meaningful use," so that WRS providers will reap every financial and technological benefit from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 (ARRA). The Waiting Room Solutions Team will guide you in learning what you need to know about the stimulus bill and how your practice can benefit. WRS qualifications include

CCHIT-certified EHR
Automated PQRI reporting to Medicare, Medicaid and Commercial Carriers
Meets and/or exceeds HHS "Meaningful Use" Matrix Requirements

Background of ARRA EHR Incentives:

A new act signed into law by President Obama in February 2009 includes $20 billion in incentives for medical professionals who provide Medicare or Medicaid services and use electronic medical records. But act fast: Doing so could get you as much as $44,000, while late adaptors will have their fee schedules reduced.
Medical professionals who implement electronic health records (EHR) are eligible to receive as much as $44,000 in incentives per professional, thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009.
The ARRA—which is intended to stimulate the economy through spending on infrastructure, education, and health care, to name just a few areas—includes more than $20 billion to aid the development of a robust IT systems in the health care sector.

Who is Eligible?

Medicare and Medicaid providers are eligible for incentives. There are two incentive programs: one for Medicare providers, and one for Medicaid providers. If you provide both Medicare and Medicaid services, you must choose one of the incentive programs based on your qualifications and the benefits provided. The following information describes both programs:

Medicare

Incentives start in 2011
Available to non-hospital providers caring for Medicare patients
Providers receive up to $44K, over a five-year period
Providers must bill 125% of the total incentive received over the five-year period
Must prove "meaningful use"* of an EHR
Providers will be penalized if they have not adopted an EHR by January 1, 2015
Using Medicare, the provider is eligible for incentives up to $44,000 (see Table 1) over five years. In addition to this, the rural health physicians are eligible for a 25% increase over and above the base incentive and up to $55,000.

Table 1
YEAR	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	TOTAL
	STAGE 1 $18,000	STAGE 1 $12,000	STAGE 2 $8,000	STAGE 2 $4,000	STAGE 3 $2,000	STAGE 3 $ -		$44,000
	$ –	STAGE 1 $18,000	STAGE 1 $12,000	STAGE 2 $8,000	STAGE 3 $4,000	STAGE 3 $2,000		$44,000
	$ –	$ –	STAGE 1 $15,000	STAGE 2 $12,000	STAGE 3 $8,000	STAGE 3 $4,000		$39,000
	$ –	$ –	$ –	STAGE 1 $15,000	STAGE 3 $12,000	STAGE 3 $8,000		$35,000
	$ –	$ –	$ –	$ –	MEDICARE FEE REDUCTIONS IF NOT STAGE 3	MEDICARE FEE REDUCTIONS IF NOT STAGE 3		$0
Penalties (% of CMS $)					-1%	-2%	-3%

Medicaid

Incentives start in 2011
Available to non-hospital based providers
Incentives range to $65K over a five-year period
Pediatricians patients must be made up of 20% Medicaid
All other providers patients must be made up of 30% Medicaid
Startup incentive up to $25,000 in state loan funds available (first year) toward the purchase a certified EHR
After receiving startup funds, providers who can prove "meaningful use"* can receive up to $10,000 annually for an additional four years
No penalties have been defined by Medicaid for lack of adoption

If you meet these requirements, you will receive up to 85% of what the government deems are “net average allowable costs,” according to the schedule Table 2. While it is unclear at this time what net average allowable costs are, it is widely believed that the maximum total payment over five years could be $64,000. We cannot verify this information at this time, however and believe $44,000 is the amount all practices should base their decisions on.

Table 2 HITECH Act – Medicaid Physician Payment Year & Incentive
First Year of Use	Total	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2010
2011	$65k	$25k	$10k	$10k	$10k	$10k
2012	$65k		$25k	$10k	$10k	$10k	$10k
2013	$65k			$25k	$10k	$10k	$10k	$10k
2014	$65k				$25k	$10k	$10k	$10k	$10k
2015	$65k					$25k	$10k	$10k	$10k	$10k
2016	$65k						$25k	$10k	$10k	$10k	$10k
No Adoption Penalties						1% penalty	2% penalty	3% penalty

Table of Content

Introduction of ARRA EHR Incentives
Meaningful Use of EHR
Certification Criteria of EHR
Request Free Live Web Demo!

MEANINGFUL USE

The Final Rule – Meaningful Use

The final Meaningful Use criteria have been released to the medical provider community. Since the Stage 1 requirements have been completed, physicians and hospitals that have been hesitant in the past can move forward with in their EHR selections. The Stage 2 criteria are expected to focus on structured data exchange and continuous quality improvement. CMS is scheduled to release the second phase criteria by the end of 2011.The Stage 3 criteria are expected to center on advanced decision support and population health. CMS is scheduled to publish the third phase criteria by the end of 2013.

We have been helping clients develop the Meaningful Use plan, now we have a significant relaxation of several compliance requirements and we reviewing the final rule in detail to provide our clients and prospects with an accurate road to Meaningful Use at Waiting Room Solutions.

WRS is providing clients, prospects, and other industry professionals – with the knowledge needed to help them accomplish the goals of ARRA and impending Health Care Reform under the new Patient Protection Act.

Implementation Schedule
Date	Description
1-Jul-10	ONC-Authorized testing & certification body approvals for applications
Fall - 2010	ONC certified HER software available for purchase
Jan-11	Eligible Providers and Hospital registration with CMS for EHR incentives
	Medicare & Medicaid incentives at a virtual location managed by CMS
Apr-11	Attestations for Medicare Program starts for Eligible providers and Hospitals
May-11	Incentive payments for Medicare begins

States on a rolling basis will be initiating incentive programs, subject to CMS approval to implement and oversee incentive program as per State Medicaid HIT plan.

The proposed rule initially called on eligible professionals to meet 25 requirements (23 for hospitals) in their use of EHRs, however the requirements for meaningful use incentives now are divided into core requirements that are mandatory and a menu of 10 additional requirements—of which five needs to be met.

Only 15 core requirements are now mandatory for eligible providers and 14 are mandatory for hospitals. The percentage of patients that are required to qualify as meaningful users has been lowered for many of the criteria. This approach was designed to make sure that the basic elements of meaningful EHR would be met by all providers qualifying for incentive payments.

The Final Rule for Meaningful use specify what physicians and hospitals will have to do to receive up to $27 billion in bonus Medicare payments for adoption of electronic health records.

For EP --- As added by section 4101(a) of the HITECH Act, it requires that as a condition of eligibility for the incentive payment, an EP must demonstrate
meaningful use of certified EHR technology of this final rule in the manner specified by the Secretary, which may include the following: an attestation, the submission of claims with
appropriate coding, a survey response, reporting of clinical quality or other measures, or other means. In the final regulation, it will require that for CY 2011, EPs demonstrate that they satisfy each of the fifteen objectives and their associated measures of the core set listed at Table 3 and five of the objectives and their associated measures from the menu set listed at Table 3.1.

	Maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses	Maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses	More than 80% of all unique patients seen by the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) have at least one entry or an indication that no problems are known for the patient recorded as structured data
TABLE 3: CORE SET
Health Outcomes Policy Priority	Stage 1 Objectives		Stage 1 Measures
Health Outcomes Policy Priority	Eligible Professionals	Eligible Hospitals and CAHs	Stage 1 Measures
Improving quality, safety, efficiency, and reducing health disparities	Use CPOE for medication orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines	Use CPOE for medication orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines	More than 30% of unique patients with at least one medication in their medication list seen by the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) have at least one medication order entered using CPOE
	Implement drug-drug and	Implement drug-drug and drug-	The EP/eligible
	drug-allergy interaction	allergy interaction checks	hospital/CAH has enabled
	checks		this functionality for the entire EHR reporting period
	Generate and transmit		More than 40% of all
	permissible prescriptions		permissible prescriptions
	electronically (eRx)		written by the EP are transmitted electronically using certified EHR technology
	Record demographics	Record demographics	More than 50% of all
	o preferred language	o preferred language	unique patients seen by the EP or admitted to the
	o gender	o gender	eligible hospital’s or
	o race	o race	CAH’s inpatient or
	o ethnicity	o ethnicity	emergency department
	o date of birth	o date of birth o date and preliminary cause of death in the event of mortality in the eligible hospital or CAH	(POS 21 or 23) have demographics recorded as structured data
	Maintain active medication list	Maintain active medication list	More than 80% of all unique patients seen by the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23)have at least one entry (or an indication that the patient is not currently prescribed any medication) recorded as structured data
	Maintain active medication allergy list	Maintain active medication allergy list	More than 80% of all unique patients seen by the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) have at least one entry (or an indication that the patient has no known medication allergies) recorded as structured data
	Record and chart changes in vital signs: Height Weight Blood pressure Calculate and display BMI *Plot and display growth charts for children 2-20 years, including BMI	Record and chart changes in vital signs: Height Weight Blood pressure Calculate and display BMI *Plot and display growth charts for children 2-20 years, including BMI	For more than 50% of all unique patients age 2 and over seen by the EP or admitted to eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23), height, weight and blood pressure are recorded as structured data
	Record smoking status for patients 13 years old or older	Record smoking status for patients 13 years old or older	More than 50% of all unique patients 13 years old or older seen by the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) have smoking status recorded
			as structured data
	Implement one clinical	Implement one clinical decision	Implement one clinical
	decision support rule relevant	support rule related to a high	decision support rule
	to specialty or high clinical	priority hospital condition along
	priority along with the ability	with the ability to track
	to track compliance that rule	compliance with that rule
	Report ambulatory clinical quality measures to CMS or the States	Report hospital clinical quality measures to CMS or the States	For 2011, provide aggregate numerator, denominator, and exclusions through attestation as discussed in section II(A)(3) of this final rule
			For 2012, electronically submit the clinical quality measures as discussed in section II(A)(3) of this final rule
Engage patients and families in their health care	Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information (including diagnostic test results, problem list, medication lists, medication allergies), upon request	Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information (including diagnostic test results, problem list, medication lists, medication allergies, discharge summary, procedures), upon request	More than 50% of all patients of the EP or the inpatient or emergency departments of the eligible hospital or CAH (POS 21 or 23) who request an electronic copy of their health information are provided it within 3 business days
		Provide patients with an electronic copy of their discharge instructions at time of discharge, upon request	More than 50% of all patients who are discharged from an eligible hospital or CAH’s inpatient department or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) and who request an electronic copy of their discharge instructions are provided it
	Provide clinical summaries for		Clinical summaries
	patients for each office visit		provided to patients for more than 50% of all office visits within 3 business days
Improve care coordination	Capability to exchange key clinical information (for example, problem list, medication list, medication allergies, diagnostic test results), among providers of care and patient authorized entities electronically	Capability to exchange key clinical information (for example, discharge summary, procedures, problem list, medication list, medication allergies, diagnostic test results), among providers of care and patient authorized entities electronically	Performed at least one test of certified EHR technology's capacity to electronically exchange key clinical information
Ensure adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information	Protect electronic health information created or maintained by the certified EHR technology through the implementation of appropriate technical capabilities	Protect electronic health information created or maintained by the certified EHR technology through the implementation of appropriate technical capabilities	Conduct or review a security risk analysis per 45 CFR 164.308 (a)(1) and implement security updates as necessary and correct identified security deficiencies as part of its risk management process

TABLE 3.1: MENU SET
Health Outcomes Policy Priority	Stage 1 Objectives		Stage 1 Measures
Health Outcomes Policy Priority	Eligible Professionals	Eligible Hospitals and CAHs	Stage 1 Measures
Improving quality, safety, efficiency, and reducing health disparities	Implement drug-formulary checks	Implement drug-formulary checks	The EP/eligible hospital/CAH has enabled this functionality and has access to at least one internal or external drug formulary for the entire EHR reporting period
		Record advance directives	More than 50% of all unique
		for patients 65 years old or	patients 65 years old or older
		older	admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient department (POS 21) have an indication of an advance directive status recorded
	Incorporate clinical lab-	Incorporate clinical lab-test	More than 40% of all clinical lab
	test results into certified	results into certified EHR	tests results ordered by the EP or by
	EHR technology as	technology as structured	an authorized provider of the
	structured data	data	eligible hospital or CAH for
			patients admitted to its inpatient or
			emergency department (POS 21 or
			23) during the EHR reporting
			period whose results are either in a
			positive/negative or numerical
			format are incorporated in certified
			EHR technology as structured data
	Generate lists of patients	Generate lists of patients by	Generate at least one report listing
	by specific conditions to	specific conditions to use	patients of the EP, eligible hospital
	use for quality	for quality improvement,	or CAH with a specific condition
	improvement, reduction	reduction of disparities,
	of disparities, research	research or outreach
	or outreach
	Send reminders to patients per patient preference for preventive/ follow up care		More than 20% of all unique patients 65 years or older or 5 years old or younger were sent an appropriate reminder during the EHR reporting period

Engage patients	Provide patients with		More than 10% of all unique
and families in	timely electronic access		patients seen by the EP are provided
their health care	to their health information (including lab results, problem list, medication lists, medication allergies) within four business days of the information being available to the EP		timely (available to the patient within four business days of being updated in the certified EHR technology) electronic access to their health information subject to the EP’s discretion to withhold certain information
	Use certified EHR technology to identify patient-specific education resources and provide those resources to the patient if appropriate	Use certified EHR technology to identify patient-specific education resources and provide those resources to the patient if appropriate	More than 10% of all unique patients seen by the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) are provided patient-specific education resources
Improve care coordination	The EP, eligible hospital or CAH who receives a patient from another setting of care or provider of care or believes an encounter is relevant should perform medication reconciliation	The EP, eligible hospital or CAH who receives a patient from another setting of care or provider of care or believes an encounter is relevant should perform medication reconciliation	The EP, eligible hospital or CAH performs medication reconciliation for more than 50% of transitions of care in which the patient is transitioned into the care of the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23)
Improve care coordination	The EP, eligible hospital or CAH who transitions their patient to another setting of care or provider of care or refers their patient to another provider of care should provide summary of care record for each transition of care or referral	The EP, eligible hospital or CAH who transitions their patient to another setting of care or provider of care or refers their patient to another provider of care should provide summary of care record for each transition of care or referral	The EP, eligible hospital or CAH who transitions or refers their patient to another setting of care or provider of care provides a summary of care record for more than 50% of transitions of care and referrals
Improve population and public health2	Capability to submit electronic data to immunization registries or Immunization Information Systems and actual submission in accordance with applicable law and practice	Capability to submit electronic data to immunization registries or Immunization Information Systems and actual submission in accordance with applicable law and practice	Performed at least one test of certified EHR technology's capacity to submit electronic data to immunization registries and follow up submission if the test is successful (unless none of the immunization registries to which the EP, eligible hospital or CAH submits such information have the capacity to receive the information electronically)
		Capability to submit electronic data on reportable (as required by state or local law) lab results to public health agencies and actual submission in accordance with applicable law and practice	Performed at least one test of certified EHR technology’s capacity to provide electronic submission of reportable lab results to public health agencies and follow-up submission if the test is successful (unless none of the public health agencies to which eligible hospital or CAH submits such information have the capacity to receive the information electronically)
	Capability to submit electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and actual submission in accordance with applicable law and practice	Capability to submit electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and actual submission in accordance with applicable law and practice	Performed at least one test of certified EHR technology's capacity to provide electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and follow-up submission if the test is successful (unless none of the public health agencies to which an EP, eligible hospital or CAH submits such information have the capacity to receive the information electronically)

History of "Meaningful Use"

DECEMBER 2009: National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released documents to qualify for incentives for physicians and hospitals which use “certified EHR technology” in a meaningful approach.

Healthcare serves more efficiently due to the meaningful use of Electronic Health Records, which is taking over the traditional paper based medical records. It rules out for the critical medical mistakes, physicians make due to illegible hand written paper records. Electronic records help with the standardization of forms, terminology and abbreviations, and data input. In contrast, EHRs can be continuously updated and records can be exchanged between different EHR systems for healthcare delivery in non-affiliated and remote healthcare facilities.

Some EHR systems automatically monitor clinical events, by analyzing patient data from an Electronic Health Record to predict, detect and potentially prevent adverse events. Also the data can be used anonymously for statistical reporting making it possible to improve quality of service provided and mainly public health communicable disease surveillance.

Table of Content

Introduction of ARRA EHR Incentives
Meaningful Use of EHR
Certification Criteria of EHR
Request Free Live Web Demo!

Certification Criteria for EHRs

ONC's interim final rule outlines the technical standards and features that EHR systems must include to receive certification for meaningful use.

The rule includes:

Standard formats for clinical summaries and prescriptions;
Standard terms to describe clinical problems, laboratory tests, medications and procedures; and
Standards for secure transmission of online data.

The following regulations and guidance have been issued:

Table 4: ARRA EHR Standards & Certification
Initial Set of Standards and Certification Criteria Interim Final Rule (IFR)	The Preliminary ARRA IFR Stage 1 program is simpler and more flexible, although it does not provide as much buyer assurance as the CCHIT Certified 2011 program. In this program, the EHR/EMR technology is inspected to meet the certification criteria and standards in the Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator (HHS/ONC) Interim Final Rule of January 2010. To receive ARRA incentives, the developer would first select the IFR Stage 1 criteria against which they wish to to be inspected. This program is designed to demonstrate that a developer's technology is well prepared to be certified once ONC-accredited testing and certification becomes available, however the final criteria and test procedures are not yet available, and CCHIT has not been accredited yet by ONC. We expect the final rules to be changed by June 2010. Developers with Preliminary ARRA certification can undergo retesting by CCHIT at no additional cost to receive a fully-accredited certification once it is available.
Certification Programs Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM)	A defined process to ensure that EHR technologies meet the adopted standards, certification criteria, and other technical requirements to achieve meaningful use of those records in systems: For Example: CCHIT Certification. The CCHIT Certified® 2011 certification program includes a rigorous inspection of integrated EHR functionality, interoperability, and security according to criteria independently developed by the CCHIT's broadly representative, expert work groups using CCHIT's published testing methods. This program tests products separately from the Preliminary ARRA program. In future, CCHIT will replace the Preliminary ARRA program with a final ONC-accredited ARRA certification program.

Comments

Physician Assistants and definition of "rural health clinic"

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 08/17/2010 - 00:03.

Hi, I am a NP and my business partner and husband is a Physician Assistant. We own a clinic in a rural, underserved area. How is the final decision made regarding the definition of a "rural health clinic"?

hi, Check this document out

Submitted by cliew on Fri, 08/20/2010 - 12:00.

hi,

Check this document out for STATUS OF THE RURAL HEALTH
CLINIC PROGRAM

http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-05-03-00170.pdf

Is this stimulus incentive

Submitted by Alissa (not verified) on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 14:33.

Is this stimulus incentive available for a private practice physical therapy office?

Re: Is this stimulus incentive

Submitted by emr_ehr_incentives on Thu, 07/01/2010 - 10:25.

Hi Alissa,

Thanks for your posting.

Based on our current understanding of the program, physical therapists and practices below does not quality for the incentives:

Free clinics that don’t bill Medicare or Medicaid
Hospital-based physicians such as pathologists, anesthesiologists or emergency physicians
Acupuncturists and other holistic providers
Any practice not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid payments

EP's

Submitted by Shari Mailander (not verified) on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 17:05.

Are Nurse Practitioners considered Eligible Professionals?

Re:EP's

Submitted by emr_ehr_incentives on Wed, 06/23/2010 - 09:38.

Dear Shari,

Yes, you are eligible for the medicaid incentive payment.

Eligible professionals include physicians, dentists, certified nurse midwives, nurse practitioner, and physician assistants practicing in rural health clinics or Federally-Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) led by a physician assistant. These eligible professionals must have at least a 30% patient volume attributable to Medicaid and/or BadgerCare Plus. The legislation does not indicate how CMS or the State must determine or calculate an eligible professional's patient volume percentage. These details will be addressed as part of the regulatory process in the coming months. for more info, please refer to the "Stage 1: List of “Meaningful Use” Objectives" of this page or himss.org web site

how much can I save using your emr system

Submitted by Nancy MD (not verified) on Mon, 06/21/2010 - 10:29.

hi, i am an urologist, I am eager to start using an EMR system in my practice (so that I can apply for the arra emr incentives), i just want to find out how much can i really save using your system? please let me know asap!

Re: how much can I save using your emr system

Submitted by emr_ehr_incentives on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 16:39.

Nancy,

You can try out our emr/ehr roi calculator

http://www.waitingroomsolutions.com/wrs/emr-ehr-roi-calculator

What is the goal of meaningful use?

Submitted by John (not verified) on Mon, 06/14/2010 - 08:54.

Hi, I am just a health care provider, I would like to know what is the goal of meaningful use? and how can this whole EHR thing help me improve my practice?

Re: What is the goal of meaningful use?

Submitted by emr_ehr_incentives on Mon, 06/14/2010 - 09:40.

Hi John,

Here are few goals of "Meaningful use":

. By using the computerized entry system, the healthcare providers could improve quality, safety, and efficiency, and reduce disparities

. Allow patients to access their own health information electronically

. To improve quality of care by allowing providers to exchanging key clinical information

. To improve public health by allowing electronic data submission to immunization registries
. To provide a better and more secure storage/protections for personal health information

arra ehr v.s arra emr

Submitted by arra incentives (not verified) on Mon, 05/31/2010 - 22:56.

is there any different between arra ehr v.s arra emr?

First of all, let's look at

Submitted by cliew on Mon, 05/31/2010 - 23:57.

First of all, let's look at the HITECH Act:

The HITECH Act, part of the 2009 economic stimulus package (ARRA) passed by the US Congress, aims at inducing more physicians to adopt EHR. Title IV of the act promises incentive payments to those who adopt and use "certified EHRs" and, eventually, reducing Medicare and Medicaid payments to those who do not use an EHR. In order to receive the EHR stimulus money, the HITECH act (ARRA) requires doctors to also show "meaningful use" of an EHR system.

Secondly, this is a tricky part, but let's try to understand the different between EHR and EMR:

There are few definitions for EMR and EHR, please see Below on How NAHIT Defined EMR and EHR

EMR: EMR (Electronic Medical Records) is an Electronic Record of health-related information on an individual that can be created, gathered, managed, and consulted by authorized clinicians and staff within one healthcare organization.

EHR: EHR (Electronic Health Records) is an Electronic Record of health-related information on an individual that conforms to nationally recognized interoperability standards and that can be created, managed, and consulted by authorized clinicians and staff across more than one healthcare organization.

Lastly, if the ARRA incentives outweight the functionality of the EMR/EHR system, ask your EMR/EHR vendor to see if they could help you qualify for the ARRA EHR stimulus money (the focus in the HITECH Act is "EHR", even if the vendor list their products as EMR, you should check with them, to make sure it is qualify for the incentives).

if the functionalities of the EMR/EHR software outweight the ARRA incentives, ask your vendor to explain how its solution will support your vision for interoperability and rapid exchange of data between care providers, in order to provide a holistic perspective on delivering health to your patients.

Hope this help!

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Get Your ARRA Stimulus Money, Learn More!

Introduction

MEANINGFUL USE

Certification Criteria for EHRs

Comments

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Physician Assistants and definition of "rural health clinic"

hi, Check this document out

Is this stimulus incentive

Re: Is this stimulus incentive

EP's

Re:EP's

how much can I save using your emr system

Re: how much can I save using your emr system

What is the goal of meaningful use?

Re: What is the goal of meaningful use?

arra ehr v.s arra emr

First of all, let's look at

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Testimonials