New Tip Sheet Walks Specialists through Meaningful Use Criteria

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has published an electronic health records meaningful use tip sheet for specialist physicians.

The sheet walks specialists through the core and menu measures under which data must be collected and reported to demonstrate meaningful use, and availability of exclusions if a measure has no relevance to a specialist’s scope of practice. There are no exclusions for clinical quality measures since a number of them are applicable to specialists, according to CMS. If no clinical quality measures are applicable, there are ways for the EHR to generate “zero values” that can be reported during attestation.

To meet certain measures, specialist may and are encouraged to use data supplied by referring and other providers, or through a health information exchange. “Please note that neither the HIE nor the referring provider must have certified EHR technology in order for you to incorporate this information into your EHR for the purposes of meeting the meaningful use objectives,” according to the tip sheet. “Where the information comes from is unimportant as long as you use your certified EHR technology to record and store it.”

Other tips cover determining “office visits” under meaningful use criteria and hardship exemptions. The tip sheet is available here.