The Road to Meaningful Use

Assisting You In Achieving Meaningful Use

Greetings!

Welcome to the Meaningful Use bi-weekly newsletter! You are a valued participant in the HealthInsight Regional Extension Center (REC) program. We hope you find this series of emails educational and informative as we keep you up to date on the activities of the REC. We look forward to working together toward helping you achieve Meaningful Use.

The Road to Meaningful Use

As a HealthInsight partner you have taken the first steps along the path to Meaningful Use. Ever wonder how many of your colleagues have joined you on this journey? Curious to know what phase they are in or how close they are to attestation? HealthInsight has compiled information in regards to our partners to share with you.

By provider	Nevada	Utah	By provider	Nevada	Utah
With EHR	426	525	Northern	164	538
Without EHR	227	63	Southern	464	30
Total	653	588	Rural	25	20
			Total	653	588

Provider Spotlight - Evolutionary Healthcare

Evolutionary Healthcare has been working with HealthInsight for a number of years. Most recently, the clinic was involved in MCMP and is now part of the Beacon Community and the Regional Extension Center.

The clinic is led by three physicians and an exceptional staff who all work hard at being paperless while trying to improve the quality of healthcare. They are currently working on getting a patient portal and are consistently making changes to improve patient care.

Evolutionary Healthcare has been using an EHR for many years, but made the transition to AmazingCharts in 2007, and just last week upgraded to the Meaningful Use version. They are well on their way to Meaningful Use and hope to attest in the fall.

Recently, Larry Jessup from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) came in town from Washington, DC and visited the clinic. He had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Osborn, Dr. Bell, and Mayra (Office Manager). Larry received insight into their clinic, how they feel about the ONC, Meaningful Use, and HealthInsight. The clinic gave some great feedback and he was very impressed with what they are doing in terms of patient engagement and overall quality improvement.

Congratulations to Evolutionary Healthcare and their continuing efforts to improve healthcare!

Stage 2 Meaningful Use Delayed

HHS announced on July 6th at the HIT Policy Committee meeting that the implementation of Stage 2 of Meaningful Use is delayed until 2014. This decision was made in response to feedback received from the provider and vendor communities. The primary concern was about having sufficient time to incorporate Stage 2 into products and workflow. This does not change the regulatory schedule which is to publish the Stage 2 NPRM in January 2012 and the final NPRM in late Spring 2012.

What does this mean?

Any provider who attests to Stage 1 of Meaningful Use in 2011 or 2012 will attest to Stage 2 in 2014, instead of 2013.

Does this really affect Medicaid providers?

This does not have a direct impact on Medicaid providers, who would not have started Stage 2 until 2014 anyway: AIU in 2011, Stage 1 (90 days) in 2012 and Stage 1 (365 days) in 2013. However, indirectly, the more prepared the vendor community is, the better for everyone.

In summary, this is an FYI for Medicaid- and is good news because of the extra time to prepare your systems for capturing Stage 2 MU attestation!

Nevada Medicaid EHR Incentive

Program Launch Update

HealthInsight recently received updated information from Nevada Medicaid concerning the timeline for the launch of the Medicaid EHR Incentive program. Details have emerged through their planning process about the complexities involved with the program, resulting in their need to procure a provider attestation portal. Primarily due to Nevada procurement law and regulations governing the contracting for the portal, the launch date for the Medicaid EHR Incentive program is anticipated to be summer of 2012. Payments to eligible professionals would be expected to start a couple of months after the program launches.

HealthInsight as the designated Nevada Regional Extension Center, will continue to support all participants with services as your practice progresses toward qualifying for the Medicaid EHR Incentive program by adopting, implementing, or upgrading to a certified EHR system for the first year, as well as achieving each of the meaningful use criteria.

Should you have additional questions about the Nevada Medicaid EHR Incentive program launch timeline please contact Justin Luna, State Of Nevada - Department Of Health And Human Services - Medicaid Office, (775) 843-3734 or justin.luna@dhcfp.nv.gov.

Contact Us

HealthInsight is your partner in achieving Meaningful Use, so please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Email: rec@healthinsight.org

Phone: (800) 483-0932

This material was prepared by HealthInsight as part of our work as the Regional Extension Center for Nevada and Utah, under grant #90RC0033/01 from the Office of the National Coordinator, Department of Health and Human Services.