The big meaningful use news this week was the release of the meaningful use stage 3 recommendations (PDF) that the meaningful use workgroup released to the public. Some on Twitter thought that this was the meaningful use stage 3 rule that could be commented on. This is not open for public comment yet, but should be soon.
In fact, Healthcare IT News listed the following timeline for meaningful use stage 3:
- Dec. 21, 2012 – RFC deadline
- January 2013 – ONC to synthesize the RFC comments for HIT Policy committee workgroups to review
- February 2013 – The workgroups will reconcile RFC comments
- March 2013 – The workgroups will present a revised draft of Stage 3 requirements to ONC
- April 2013 – ONC is expected to approve final Stage 3 recommendations
- May 2013 – ONC will transmit final Stage 3 recommendations to HHS
That’s a pretty aggressive timeline to have meaningful use stage 3 published by May 2013. If my dates are right, meaningful use stage 3 won’t be effective until 2016. I like that ONC wants to get the MU stage 3 out soon so that no one can use not having the meaningful use details as an excuse for not complying. However, I also don’t think ONC should rush the process either. We have to live with meaningful use, good and bad, for a long time to come.
I’d love to hear what you notice in the meaningful use stage 3 proposal (PDF). We’ll be sure to cover it a lot more in the future.
I don’t believe May 2013 is the date the NPRM for Stage 3 will be published. Once ONC sends their recommendations for Stage 3 to CMS, CMS then writes the NPRM, which can take a while.
Hi Genevieve,
I felt like that was too fast, but that was what was referenced from the policy committee meeting. Maybe there’s some most steps after this timeline with the NPRM that are missing.