After suffering tremendous backlash regarding the timeline for implementing Meaningful Use Stage 3 standards, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released its final ruling on Tuesday, October 6th.
The overarching goal of the revised ruling was to increase flexibility for providers while simplifying requirements overall. Some of the major highlights outlined by CMS to support health information exchange include:
- Shift the paradigm so health IT becomes a tool for care improvement, not an end in itself.
- Provide simplicity and flexibility so that providers can choose measures that use in their practices and report progress that are most meaningful to their practice.
- Give providers and state Medicaid agencies more time – 27 months, until January 1, 2018 – to comply with the new requirements and prepare for the next set of system improvements.
- Give developers more time to create the next advancements in technology that will be easier to use and more appropriate to new models of care and access to data by consumers.
- Support provider exchange of health information and a more useful interoperable infrastructure for information exchange between providers and with patients
- Give developers more time to create the next advancements in technology that will be easier to use and more appropriate to new models of care and access to data by consumers.
- Address health information blocking and interoperability between providers and with patients.
For the EHR Incentive Programs in 2015 through 2017, major provisions include:
- 10 objectives for eligible professionals including one public health reporting objective, down from 18 total objectives in prior stages.
- 9 objectives for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) including one public health reporting objective, down from 20 total objectives in prior stages.
- Clinical Quality Measures (CQM) reporting for both eligible professionals (EPs) and eligible hospitals/CAHs remains as previously finalized.
All Stage 3 requirements are optional in 2017. Providers who choose to begin Stage 3 in 2017 will then have a 90-day reporting period. All providers will be required to comply with Stage 3 requirements beginning in 2018 using EHR technology certified to the 2015 Edition.
Modifications to Stage 2 included a reduction from 5% of an EP’s patient panel to a single patient for VDT requirements. However, with the Stage 3 ruling, in 2017 requirements will increase again to 5% and in 2018 they’ll increase to 10%.
“While we’re seeing leniency on patient engagement objectives to address information blocking issues, the momentum is still going to continue pushing forward,” said Senior Healthcare Strategist, Christina Caraballo. “We’ll see that in the 10% requirements to come.”
Get Real Health is optimistic that this collaborative approach was used to reach this final ruling. By listening to and considering to the thousands of comments rendered, the requirements will more accurately reflect the needs of the healthcare continuum in the real world.
Objectives and measures for Stage 3 include increased thresholds, advanced use of health information exchange functionality, and an overall focus on continuous quality improvement.
