Lynn Scheps is Vice President, Government Affairs at EHR vendor SRSsoft. In this role, Lynn has been a Voice of Physicians and SRSsoft users in Washington during the formulation of the meaningful use criteria. Lynn is currently working to assist SRSsoft users interested in showing meaningful use and receiving the EHR incentive money. Check out Lynn’s previous Meaningful Use Monday posts.

A reader posed the following question: What happens if a physician receives a Medicaid EHR incentive in 2011, no longer meets the 30% eligibility threshold for Medicaid in 2012 and therefore elects not to apply for any incentive that year, and then has to switch to the Medicare program in 2013 because his Medicaid volume is still too low to qualify under Medicaid? Below is a follow-up to a prior post, (“Switching Between Medicare and Medicaid Incentive Programs”), that provides the additional information needed to not only answer this particular question, but also to evaluate the financial impact of other scenarios in which a provider might skip years and/or switch between programs. 

Here are the rules regarding switching programs and skipping years:

• An EP can switch between programs only once after receiving his first incentive payment, and the switch must occur in 2014 or earlier.
• When an EP switches programs, he is “placed in the payment year he would have been in had he begun in—and remained in—the program to which he has switched.”
• Medicare and Medicaid treat skipping years differently. Medicare incentives require that payment years be consecutive—so while an EP can skip a year, if he does, he forfeits that year’s incentive permanently. Medicaid incentive payments, on the other hand, can be non-consecutive with no adverse impact on total available revenue.
• The last year that payments will be available also differs between the two programs. Under Medicare, no payments will be made after 2016, whereas EPs have until 2021 to earn incentives under Medicaid.
• Although an EP who switches to or from the Medicare program could—under certain circumstances—earn more than the total Medicare incentives ($44,000), in no cases would any EP be paid more than the maximum available under Medicaid ($63,750). 

To get back to the physician in the reader’s question, when he switches to the Medicare program after skipping 2012, 2013 would be considered (and paid as) his third payment year. 

Confused? To analyze the financial implications of switching programs and/or skipping a year under scenarios that might apply to your practice, make a chart and do the math—taking into account the above rules and the schedules of annual incentives.

Lynn Scheps is Vice President, Government Affairs at EHR vendor SRSsoft. In this role, Lynn has been a Voice of Physicians and SRSsoft users in Washington during the formulation of the meaningful use criteria. Lynn is currently working to assist SRSsoft users interested in showing meaningful use and receiving the EHR incentive money. Check out Lynn’s previous Meaningful Use Monday posts.

Many physicians will be pursuing EHR incentives in 2012. Because meaningful use is not dependent upon G-codes, providers have been asking whether they need to continue putting “G-8553” on Medicare claims. The answer is YES—keep on G-Coding! 

Even though physicians who receive a Medicare EHR incentive are ineligible for an ePrescribing (MIPPA) incentive, they are still subject to future ePrescribing penalties. These penalties can be avoided by ePrescribing in 2012:

• Prevent the 2013 (1.5%) penalty – CMS is giving providers a second chance. If you failed to ePrescribe on the minimum 25 Medicare encounters in 2011, (which would have already protected you from the 2013 penalty), report G-8553 10 times between January 1 and June 30, 2012 on any Medicare claims. These claims don’t even have to be for the specified CPT “denominator” codes.
• Prevent the 2014 (2%) penalty – Report the G-code 25 times between January 1 and December 31, 2012. These claims must be associated with the specified CPT codes (typically E&M visits). 

If you are not pursuing meaningful use in 2012—or if you are, but for some reason fail to earn the incentive this year—you can still earn a 1% ePrescribing bonus under MIPPA if you report the G-Code on claims with the specified CPT codes 25 times between January and December . 

Like last year, there will be a process for requesting an exemption from the 2013 penalties, but surprisingly, the Proposed Rule did not include earning an EHR incentive as one of the justifications.

A couple quick tweets to welcome your new week. Both tweets stand on their own and link to some good reads for those interested in the topics. The second one is particularly good since it’s John Halamka’s 2011 wrap up across all the various parts of John Halamka’s life. Let me know what you think of both reads.

Very good guidance on accounting and reporting for #EHR incentive payments bit.ly/xuX9Un

— Brian Ahier (@ahier) January 7, 2012

Healthcare CIO on 2011: #EHRs…added features for certification resulting in…lack of #usability & #workflow integration ehr.bz/lv

— Charles Webster, MD (@c_wb) January 2, 2012

Lynn Scheps is Vice President, Government Affairs at EHR vendor SRSsoft. In this role, Lynn has been a Voice of Physicians and SRSsoft users in Washington during the formulation of the meaningful use criteria. Lynn is currently working to assist SRSsoft users interested in showing meaningful use and receiving the EHR incentive money. Check out Lynn’s previous Meaningful Use Monday posts.

Meaningful Use penalties—or to use the politically correct word, “adjustments”—are scheduled to begin in 2015 for providers who are not meaningful users of certified EHR technology by 2014. There’s something about the prospect of incurring a revenue reduction that seems to evoke a visceral response among providers—even among those who do not find the potential incentive money motivating.

Here’s what you need to know about the penalties:

1) Penalties apply to Medicare only.
- Adjustments will be applied as a percent of Medicare Part B Professional Fee Schedule Charges.
- They are scheduled to begin in 2015, and continue as follows:
2015: 1%
2016: 2%
2017: 3%
2018 and 2019: may increase 1%/year, at the discretion of the Secretary of HHS.

2) There has been speculation by some industry pundits that the penalties will be delayed or not implemented at all, but to rely upon that as a given would be a mistake.

3) There are no penalties associated with the Medicaid program—adjustments do not apply to Medicaid revenue. Pursuing the EHR incentives as a Medicaid provider, however, does not totally insulate a physician from the penalties. If a Medicaid provider does not become a meaningful user by 2014, the revenue he/she generates under Medicare would be subject to the adjustments above.

Lynn Scheps is Vice President, Government Affairs at EHR vendor SRSsoft. In this role, Lynn has been a Voice of Physicians and SRSsoft users in Washington during the formulation of the meaningful use criteria. Lynn is currently working to assist SRSsoft users interested in showing meaningful use and receiving the EHR incentive money. Check out Lynn’s previous Meaningful Use Monday posts.

EPs cannot receive EHR incentives from both Medicare and Medicaid in the same year—they must choose between the two, even if they are eligible under both programs. As discussed in a prior Meaningful Use Monday post, Medicaid is typically the EHR incentive program of choice for EPs who have a sufficiently large Medicaid volume. 

But providers must re-qualify annually, so what happens if the participating provider’s Medicaid volume drops below the 30% (or 20% peds.) threshold in a future year, making him/her no longer eligible for that program? What about an EP who initially participates as a Medicare provider, but subsequently becomes eligible for the more generous Medicaid program? As the first EHR Incentive Program participants approach year 2, they need to understand their options in this regard. 

The rule is as follows:  An EP may switch from one program to another, but only one time after receiving his/her first EHR incentive payment, and only for a payment year before 2015.  

Note: In case you are doing the math and calculating how you could game the system to increase your potential revenue, the rule goes on to say that under no circumstances can an EP’s total incentives exceed the total available under Medicaid, (i.e., $63,750).

The following was a comment made on my previous post about Meaningful Use attestation issues by Jon (man there are a lot of John/Jon’s in Health IT). As always, I do my best to bring out interesting topics for all to read. In this rant, Jon makes some interesting comments about the challenge of specialty EHR software to meet the MU measures. Something I’ve mentioned before, but Jon adds some more insight.

*start rant*

It is even worse for some small EHR vendors that have existed for over 20 years – like the one I work for. The government has no idea how ugly and not applicable many key elements of meaningful use (defined as the government chooses) are for non-primary care, highly specialized providers.

Here’s a conundrum that frames EHR certification and meaningful use in a way I rarely see it discussed (and would love for someone to explore more *hint hint*) – take a small, but established vendor of EHR software which is not yet certified.

This vendor provides software to a niche industry of highly specialized providers, who do not derive any real or identifiable value from meaningful use as it is defined (to keep things generic I will omit the specific part of the industry).

To get software 100% EHR certified you must fulfill all of the requirements, even if, as a vendor, your customers will not make use of, or benefit from, most of the functionality. Please take as an assumption (for this discussion) that only 30-40% of the EHR certification requirements are of value to the customer.

Since the customer will not make use of the functionality, they don’t want really want to pay for a 100% EHR certified product. But they sure would like the incentive money (or in the case of Medicare providers, will get penalized if they didn’t do meaningful use).

As a small vendor, your big competitors are all EHR certified (and some are even free), but even if it didn’t make sense for the customer – because the other (typically larger) vendor can afford to implement it, even if it is sloppy. Customers see a well-known product name from a large company is EHR certified – so EHR certification gives those who complete it an edge – even if it makes zero financial or functional sense.

I hate being a pessimist, as surely some good has come from meaningful use. However, as we are seeing by these posts, what value does EHR certification and meaningful use TRULY bring to the provider, other than the requisite piece of paper to get incentive money? We need to see many, many more successes, and in my specific case, we need to make sense of how to make something which is not useful… useful somehow.

Sure, the answer to this might be that in the long run, vendors with better or more applicable products will always win out, but we know that this isn’t always true based on long-term software contracts or lack of desire to switch vendors. Or the answer might be that highly specialized providers only account for 20% or less, and 80% of the provider population is primary care or similar handle meaningful use just fine. Or maybe that I’m just crying in my beer!

Nevertheless, we have this catch-22.. or an enigma wrapped in a mystery shrouded in a riddle.

*end rant* Comments? Thoughts?

One other note from John Lynn, I’m sure many large EHR vendors will probably say that if small EHR vendors can’t meet the MU requirements, then they don’t deserve to be an EHR software. Those that say this, are really missing the point. It’s not that they couldn’t meet the MU requirements, it’s a question of should they meet them in MU’s current state.

Today’s short Sunday post comes from Dr. West who blogs over at Happy EMR Doctor. The following comment was made on one of our Meaningful Use Monday posts.

“So glad I’m having nothing to do with the MU program. The freedom is bliss.”

I wonder how many other doctors share Dr. Wests view. Although, more interesting might be EHR users that are jealous of his view. Of course, the interesting thing in all this is that Dr. West is a real fan of EHR software and uses one in his practice. It’s just the government meaningful use requirements that he’s not doing.

Lynn Scheps is Vice President, Government Affairs at EHR vendor SRSsoft. In this role, Lynn has been a Voice of Physicians and SRSsoft users in Washington during the formulation of the meaningful use criteria. Lynn is currently working to assist SRSsoft users interested in showing meaningful use and receiving the EHR incentive money. Check out Lynn’s previous Meaningful Use Monday posts.

Year 1 of the EHR Incentives program is almost history. Do you have a plan for 2012? What you do next year depends on what you did this year. 

If you did not pursue meaningful use in 2011—and many Medicare providers did not, either because they were not ready yet or because they opted to earn the ePrescribing incentive under MIPPA instead—it is now time to focus on meaningful use. You can choose any 90-day reporting period in 2012 starting as late as October 3^rd, but it would be wise not to leave it to the last minute.

If you successfully attested to meaningful use in 2011, your reporting period for the second year’s incentive is a full calendar year. Regardless of which 90-day period you chose to report on for 2011, in 2012 you will report from January 1 to December 31. Incentives are tied to calendar years, so even if you completed your 2011 reporting period in September, your next period does not begin until January. Take a break from reporting, but do not abandon your meaningful use workflow.

For EPs who participate under the Medicare program, the 5 years of incentive payments must be continuous in order to earn the full $44,000 in incentives. Once you receive your first payment, skipping a subsequent year, (i.e., failing to demonstrate meaningful use), while permissible, will mean that you forfeit the payment associated with that calendar year. 

For EPs who receive a 2011 Medicaid incentive for “Adoption, Implementation, or Upgrade,” 2012 will require the demonstration of meaningful use. Since it will be your first year of meaningful use, you will only be expected to report on a 90-day period, and that period can occur any time during the year. Medicaid participants are eligible for 6 incentive payments—as opposed to 5 for Medicare providers—and unlike Medicare, the years do not have to be consecutive, as long as they are all completed by 2021. 

It’s time to start thinking about 2012.

Yep, the government shutdown talks were in the air again. We heard all about this back in April, we just heard about it again and now they’ve pushed the discussion out until November. I have a feeling that we’re going to continue to hear about it for a while to come. I’m just a passive political sideline observer, but I’d say the chance of a government shutdown is still very little. For all the drama of the media, I have a feeling that the drama won’t actually lead to a shutdown. A last minute deal will be reached…again and again like it did this time and the last.

However, it’s interesting to consider how a government shutdown could affect healthcare IT. In similar situations I’ve seen budgets have usually seen healthcare as an essential function and so they’ve been fine. Although, that’s really talking about the short term possibility of a government shutdown. Who knows what the long term budgets could hold for the government related entities.

Medicare and Medicaid are constantly in the cross hairs of cuts. Most doctors I know talk about how those two government programs pay them the least amount of money. Plus, they talk how many of the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid basically get passed on to them as doctors. I wonder what the super committee that’s required to cut $1.5 trillion of the federal deficit over the next decade will do with Medicare and Medicaid.

We’ve discussed many times the potential impact of the workings in Washington on meaningful use and the EHR incentive money (most think it’s safe).

For those that think what happens in Washington DC won’t really have much impact on healthcare IT, you might want to consider the email I got today announcing the keynote speakers for HIMSS 12 in Las Vegas. Donna Brazile (Democrat) and Dana Perino (Republican) will be on stage for what will no doubt be a spirited debate about the 2012 presidential elections, the political landscape and healthcare reform.

It’s going to be an interesting next couple years to see how changes in government affect healthcare IT and EMR.

Lynn Scheps is Vice President, Government Affairs at EHR vendor SRSsoft. In this role, Lynn has been a Voice of Physicians and SRSsoft users in Washington during the formulation of the meaningful use criteria. Lynn is currently working to assist SRSsoft users interested in showing meaningful use and receiving the EHR incentive money. Check out Lynn’s previous Meaningful Use Monday posts.

The Final Rule on ePrescribing was published in the Federal Register on September 6. This is the rule that adds new categories under which some providers can request a hardship exemption from the 2012 (1%) ePrescribing penalties, and it eliminates some of the discrepancies between the Medicare ePrescribing rule and ARRA. (See Meaningful Use Monday June 6.)The only change from the Proposed Rule is the deadline for filing a request—it has been extended to November 1, 2011 (from October 1). Providers should file as early as possible, however, to minimize the number of claims that have to be reprocessed. 

Requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. To submit a request for exemption:

• Access the exemption request form on CMS’ QualityNet website www.qualitynet.org/pqrs
• In the “Related Links” box on the upper left, click on “Communication Support Page”, which will display the online form
• Provide identifying info (TIN, NPI, name, address, etc.)
• Indicate which hardship category applies
• Submit a justification statement explaining how ePrescribing represents a significant hardship
• Attest to the accuracy of the information submitted. 

Craft your argument thoughtfully. There is no appeal process—the decision of CMS is final.