CMS finally publishes proposed and interim final rules. Hospitals can now determine incentive payment amount and clear understanding of meaningful user requirements Read more...

The House of Representatives on Saturday November 7, 2009 passed a sweeping health care bill by a vote of 220-215. With the passage of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, proponents of health care reform took an important step forward, but turning the bill into law remains uncertain. It's unclear when the Senate will vote on a version of the health care legislation debated in that chamber. If the Senate passes its bill, the House and Senate bills would have to be reconciled into one document and voted on again. Read more...

Attachments:

111_ahcaa.pdf 3357 KB

From HealthcareITNews, "As the government works to draft a "meaningful use" definition by the end of December, healthcare IT vendors are urging clarity and consistency on what they and providers are expected to implement to receive incentives under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)." Read more...

According to ITBusinessEdge, HHS is to release the final HITECH 'Meaningful Use' standard in December. Read more...

CCHIT-certified application from Doctations' makes it easy for physicians to qualify for bonuses and stimulus incentives from PQRI, ARRA and E-Prescribing initiatives. Read more...

A Message from Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, "I recently reported on our announcement of State Health Information Technology Grants and grants to establish Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers, as authorized under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the Recovery Act)." Read more...

As most of us know, the Meaningful User definition has been set quite high. Now, the bar is set even higher with requirement that the certain quality improvement measures also be satisfied. Read more...

Subject document was updated 26 June 2009. Read more...

Attachments:

CommitteeRecommendations_MeaningfulUse.pdf 43 KB

Under ARRA, the government is making a specific payment amount available to hospitals that become “meaningful users.” The bad news here is that we will only get paid the Medicare share, or in other words, the costs of EHRs applicable to Medicare patients. Read more...

In February 2009, President Obama signed into law the largest economic stimulus package in the history of the United States: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The Obama administration authorized approximately $780 billion in funding to a wide array of programs, federal agencies and states. More than $30 billion are allocated for healthcare. Read more...