There have been many conversations regarding the amount of stimulus payments a practice can receive for using an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. From a high level view, the following items are important:
Medicare and Medicaid – stimulus payments will be in the form of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.
Meaningful Use - Medicare and Medicaid will provide reimbursement incentives to physicians and hospitals that show “meaningful use” of an EHR.
Certified EHR – The EHR a physician or hospital uses must be certified through the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT).
For an excellent overview of the amount of stimulus payments a practice can expect to receive check out the following article.
If you want to use a quick and easy calculator to see what stimulus payments a practice may expect to receive go here.
This article provides some very good links to discussions concerning “meaningful use”.
If you are looking into various EHR solutions, makes sure you discuss with each of the vendors what their certification plans are. If you have already implemented an EHR make sure you have the same certification conversation.
