Feds Add, Update Meaningful Use FAQs

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has added 11 new questions to its EHR Meaningful Use Frequently Asked Questions Page, and updated numerous existing FAQs.


The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has added 11 new questions to its EHR Meaningful Use Frequently Asked Questions Page, and updated numerous existing FAQs.

Many of the new questions demonstrate just how complicated meaningful use compliance can become, and the situations confronting provider organizations as they try to figure out what compliance really means. For instance:

 * If data is captured using certified electronic health record (EHR) technology, can an eligible professional or eligible hospital use a different system to generate reports used to demonstrate meaningful use for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs?

* Can eligible professionals participate in the 2011 Physician Quality Reporting System (formerly called PQRI), 2011 Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program, and the EHR Incentive Program (aka Meaningful Use) at the same time and earn incentives for each?

* Is an eligible professional or eligible hospital limited to demonstrating meaningful use in the exact way that EHR technology was tested and certified?

* If a State utilizes the option to include patient panels when looking at patient volume for the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, what does it mean to have "unduplicated encounters"?

* For the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs, should patient encounters in an ambulatory surgical center (Place of Service 24) be included in the denominator for calculating that at least 50 percent or more of an eligible professional's (EP's) patient encounters during the reporting period occurred at a practice/location or practices/locations equipped with certified EHR technology?

* To meet the meaningful use objective "use computerized provider order entry (CPOE)" for the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs, should eligible professionals (EPs) include hospital-based observation patients (billed under POS 22) whose records are maintained using the hospital's certified EHR system in the numerator and denominator calculation for this measure?

* If my certified EHR technology is capable of submitting batch files to an immunization registry using the standards adopted by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (HL7 2.3.1 or 2.5.1, and CVX), is that sufficient to meet the Meaningful Use objective "submit electronic data to immunization registries" for the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs? Additionally, if my certified EHR technology only includes the capability to submit information to an immunization registry using the HL7 2.3.1 standard but the immunization registry only accepts information formatted in the HL7 2.5.1 or some other standard, will I qualify for an exclusion because the immunization registry does not have the capacity to receive the information electronically?

The answers to these questions and 118 others are available here.

--Joseph Goedert