Reimbursement News

Penalties Handed Out to 257K Meaningful Use EPs

By Ryan Mcaskill

CMS announced 257,000 eligible professionals will have Medicare payments altered for failing to meet meaningful use standards.

- Yesterday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that more than 257,000 providers eligible for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program through meaningful use, will receive a penalty starting January 1, 2015.

As part of the 2009 economic stimulus package, healthcare providers that demonstrated meaningful use of EHR systems would qualify for incentive payments. In October, CMS extended a deadline from November 30 to the end of the year.

During a call with reporters, Elizabeth Holland, Director of the Division of Health Information Technology in the Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group in the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality at CMS, said providers will be receiving notification of a 1 percent reduction in Medicare payments for not meeting program criteria. Also 28,000 eligible professionals will receive a 2 percent reduction for failing to comply with both Medicare meaningful use and electronic prescribing incentive programs.

“As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Congress mandated that payment adjustments be applied to Medicare-eligible professionals who are not meaningful users of certified EHR technology under the Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Program,” Holland said. “We are getting ready to start mailing the letters to the eligible professionals who will be getting this payment adjustment and it is a number that is over 257,000 and these people will be paid one percent less of the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule amount that would otherwise apply for all their Medicare-covered professional services that they provide.”

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  • She added the letter those being penalized will receive has instructions for how to apply for reconsideration. These applications will be accepted through the end of February.

    An additional 200 eligible hospitals have also received penalties for failure to meet meaningful use standards, though the deadline for that was October 1, 2014.

    The American Medical Association responded to the announcement from CMS in a letter penned by president elect Steven Stack, MD.

    “The AMA is appalled by news from CMS today that more than 50 percent of eligible professionals will face penalties under the Meaningful Use program in 2015, a number that is even worse than we anticipated,” stack wrote.

    He added that the Meaningful Use program was designed to increase physician use of technology to improve care and efficiency. AMA supported the original HITECH legislation and provided extensive feedback to help shape the program. However, very little of these changes were used and a strict one-size-fits-all requirements was implemented that is failing physicians and patients.

    “The penalties physicians are facing under the Meaningful Use program are part of a regulatory tsunami facing physicians,” stack wrote “The overlapping and often conflicting patchwork of laws and regulations must be fixed and aligned to ensure physicians are able to move to innovative payment and delivery models that could improve the quality of care.”