A professional participating in the electronic reporting pilot program must electronically submit 12 months of clinical quality measures data by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb 28, or their 2012 meaningful use attestation will be rejected, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services warns.
But the government has scheduled information system maintenance outages that attesting eligible professionals must work around during the next two weeks. The PECOS and NPPES applications from the Social Security Administration, which are part of the processes of properly identifying providers, will be unavailable from 11:00 p.m. Eastern on Feb. 16 to Feb. 18 at 5:00 a.m. A CMS systems outage all day on Feb. 23 and 24 will prohibit completing of e-reporting of clinical quality measures through the PQRS information system.
As the Feb. 28 attestation deadline nears, CMS expects high user volume on the PQRS and EHR Incentive Program information systems. Eligible professionals participating in the electronic reporting pilot can drop out of the pilot if they run into problems that could affect meaningful use attestation. CMS suggests providers return to their EHR Incentive Program registration, change the selection to “No” on the e-reporting screen, and enter clinical quality measures data into the attestation portal.
