Official: Meaningful Use Program Has Given Out $400M in Incentive Pay  

Status of EHR Incentive Programs

A CMS official recently announced that Medicare and Medicaid have distributed a combined total of about $400 million in meaningful use incentive payments, Modern Healthcare reports.

During a meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee, Robert Tagalicod -- director of CMS' Office of eHealth Standards and Services -- said that about 77,000 health care providers have registered for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs.

Twenty-three states have opened their Medicaid EHR incentive programs for registration. Tagalicod noted that more than 3,500 health care providers already have received incentive payments through Medicaid.

In addition, Tagalicod noted that 100 hospitals and 2,383 eligible health care providers have attested to meeting the meaningful use requirements under the Medicare EHR incentive program (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 8/4). However, Tagalicod said that 137 health care providers attested unsuccessfully. He did not provide a reason for the failed attestation.

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