New Guidance on Picking Menu Objectives under Meaningful Use

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has updated a frequently asked question on selecting menu objectives for eligible professionals under the electronic health records meaningful use program.


The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has updated a frequently asked question on selecting menu objectives for eligible professionals under the electronic health records meaningful use program. The update includes guidance in 2014 for Stages 1 and 2:

Question: “How should EPs select menu objectives for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs?”

Answer: “EPs participating in Stage 1 of the EHR Incentive Programs are required to report on a total of 5 meaningful use objectives from the menu set of 10. When selecting five objectives from the menu set, EPs must choose at least one option from the public health menu set. If an EP is able to meet the measure of one of the public health menu objectives but can be excluded from the other, the EP should select and report on the public health menu objective they are able to meet. If an EP can be excluded from both public health menu objectives, the EP should claim an exclusion from only one public health objective and report on four additional menu objectives from outside the public health menu set.

“EPs participating in Stage 2 are required to report 3 meaningful use objectives from the menu set of 6.

“We encourage EPs to select menu objectives that are relevant to their scope of practice, and claim an exclusion for a menu objective only in cases where there are no remaining menu objectives for which they qualify or if there are no remaining menu objectives that are relevant to their scope of practice. For example, we hope that EPs will report on 5 measures, if there are 5 measures that are relevant to their scope of practice and for which they can report data, even if they qualify for exclusions in the other objectives.

“Starting in 2014 for both Stage 1 and Stage 2, meeting the exclusion criteria will no longer count as reporting a meaningful use objective from the menu set. An EP must meet the measure criteria for 5 objectives in Stage 1 (3 objectives in Stage 2) or report on all of the menu set objectives through a combination of meeting exclusion and meeting the measure.”

All of the meaningful use FAQs are available here.