Incentives
In 2011 the government started allocating funds to providers who meet meaningful use criteria; this continues to serve as an incentive for providers to convert to an EHR platform. In 2014 reimbursement is still available through Medicare and Medicaid for providers that meet meaningful use criteria.
There are two separate reimbursement plans, one for Medicare, which is run by CMS and one for Medicaid, which is state-run.
- Reimbursements could be as high as $44,000 for Medicare and up to $63,000 for Medicaid if a provider started in 2011, but the amount has gradually declined each year since 2011.
- Reimbursements are still available for providers who adopt an EHR platform and meet the criteria.
Why an EHR Platform?
If you haven’t converted to an EHR platform now is the time to do so. In 2015 CMS will penalize providers by shrinking Medicare reimbursements by 1% in 2015, 2%, in 2016, and 3% in 2017 and in subsequent years. CMS and the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology have set criteria in place to make sure EHR platforms meet the standards to qualify for reimbursement. A very important requirement that CMS has mandated is that 80% of patients need to have at least one entry in a certified electronic format.
The Problem
Data in an EHR platform is structured data. An EHR system can manage structured data such as patient demographic information and transactional line items, but not unstructured data like diagnostic images, text based documents. All data needs to be easily retrieved, searched, and transferred, therefore an EHR platform alone may not be sufficient.
The Palm 1 Medical Solution
An ongoing document scanning platform is needed in order to upload future paper documents structured or unstructured into the system. Therefore an add-on document scanning platform should be implemented to manage the data electronically within the EHR system. An electronic management system or ECM is the RIGHT tool for managing this information. Once this tool is in place, a provider can be confident that they will be able to meet meaningful use criteria. Read about the value that our partner’s ECM brought to The Children’s Hospital in New Orleans.
If you are interested in learning about Palm 1 Medical’s ad-on document management and scanning solutions please contact us today and let us help guide you to the solution that fits your needs.
For more resources and information click on the links below:
http://www.athenahealth.com/_doc/pdf/HITECH_Fact_Sheet_Whitepaper.pdf