New CMS Rule Changes Meaningful Use Timeline September 10, 2014 EHR, Practice Management CEHRT, certified electronic health record technology, EHR, meaningful use 0 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a new final rule that would provide eligible professionals participating in the Medicare and Medi-Cal electronic health record (EHR) incentive program an additional year to upgrade their certified electronic health record technology (CEHRT) and revises the meaningful use timeline. The rule will go into effect on October 1, 2014. The final rule would allow eligible professionals to use 2011 Edition CEHRT or a combination of 2011 and 2014 Edition CEHRT for the 2014 EHR reporting period to demonstrate meaningful use. Eligible professionals that were scheduled to begin Stage 2 in 2014 will not be required to begin Stage 2 until 2015 if they attest that they could not fully implement 2014 Edition CEHRT due to delays in availability of 2014 Edition CEHRT for the 2014 reporting period. The final rule would also revise the meaningful use timeline for Stage 3 to begin in 2017 for eligible professionals. CMS, however, emphasizes that beginning in 2015, all providers will be required to report using 2014 Edition CEHRT to successfully demonstrate meaningful use. SFMS members can access detailed information on the federal EHR incentive program and meaningful use via CAM’s On-Call Documents #4301 “Electronic Health Records: Federal Incentive Program,” #4302 “Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records,” and #4305 “EHR Meaningful Use: Stage 2.” These and other resources are complimentary to SFMS members and at $2/page to non-members. Comments are closed.
