The wonderful John Chilmark posted a short message he heard from a Keynote address by John Halamka at the PHAT conference put on by the Harvard School of Public Health. Here’s the message:

there will be no partial reimbursement for meeting just part of meaningful use. Its all or nothing folks.

I think we all assumed this was basically the case, but it’s interesting to hear John Halamka say it. Let’s not take this quote too far out of context. I don’t think that John Halamka was saying that if you don’t qualify for one year of EMR incentive, that the next year you won’t have any more chances to qualify. I think he’s saying that either you’re going to get that years portion of EMR stimulus money or you’re going to be stuck waiting for the next year.

Let me repeat my mantra:

Implement EMR because it’s the right thing to do for your clinic (and I tell you that it is the right thing to do for almost ANY clinic) and not in the hopes of getting the EMR stimulus money. Stick with the now proven EMR benefits and use the EMR stimulus money as a possible bonus and you’ll be happy you did.