In
order to qualify for the Medicare EHR Incentive, you have to attest that each Eligible
Provider (EP) meets the Meaningful Use requirements. The two key issues are how can you get a provider to work up to
the MU Measure Requirements and how can you document the same for your Eligible
Providers.
Attaining MU for Each
Provider -
In practice, few physicians attain the Meaningful Use measures from day one or at
a set date. In actuality, providers work
towards Meaningful Use as they become familiar with the EHR specific
requirements for each measure.
To
help physicians focus, consider waiting until they are familiar using the EHR
with patients in order to ease the refinements that may be necessary for the MU
Measures. At this point, you should run
the MU Measure reports for the physician and analyze the physician performance. Provide feedback to the EP on a weekly
or daily basis depending on their progress.
Consider more frequent feedback for providers that are not making
progress and weekly feedback for providers that are making progress.
When
the EP is close or has attained the MU Measures levels for all relevant
measures, you can start the 90 day period.
Throughout the 90 day period, you should monitor Eligible Provider
measures on at least a weekly basis. If
you detect some degradation on the measure levels, you should consider more
frequent or even daily feedback. Note
that some EHR products have a dashboard that provides real time results while
other EHRs are limited to daily MU reporting.
In either case, you want to monitor the EP in support of their effort to
attain MU.
After
the 90 day period is completed, continue to monitor the MU Measures at least
one a week until the provider is consistent and does not need prompting to
accommodate the MU Measure strategy for your EHR. However, you should monitor performance at least monthly and increase the frequency to weekly
or even daily to help providers maintain MU performance. Remember that you do not want to have to
catch up to a measure that may have little room for error. For example, some measures require fulfillment
for at least 80 percent of unique patients.
Maintain Separate
Attest Records for Each Eligible Provider – At the completion of each period (initial
90 day or annually), you should accumulate a separate set of documentation for
each individual Eligible Provider:
Assure that you have documentation for each MU
Measure for each Eligible provider. For
example, generating a list of patients meeting clinical criteria (Stage 1 Menu
Measure) should be directed to the specific physician for whom you are
compiling information. Similarly, you
should perform a test of electronic exchange of clinical information (Stage 1 Core
Measure) for the specific Eligible Provider.
Documentation should include the relevant support or results that meet
the MU Measure.
The security risk analysis will probably be
completed for the practice, but will have to be part of the documentation for
each eligible Provider. You should put a
separate copy of the Security Analysis documentation in the documentation for
each Eligible Provider.
Include a copy of the documentation from your
EHR on how the MU Reports are generated and the calculation of the MU Measure by
the EHR. Note that future MU
calculations may change to meet Stage 2, and to account for EHR product
changes. If you have made changes to the
EHR MU calculation or calculation, you should include supporting documentation
for the change and the results.
At
the end of the process, you should have a separate set of documentation that
fully supports your attestation for the relevant EP.
Attaining
MU and maintaining the supporting MU documentation for each Eligible Provider
is a continuing process that requires consistent monitoring of performance and
documentation for each individual provider.
Thereby, you will help your providers qualify for the EHR incentives and
be able to prove the same if ever challenged by CMS.
For additional strategies on MU, click here.
To analyze, plan and design a results oriented Meaningful Use strategy for 2013 and beyond, contact Sterling Solutions at (800)967-3028 or click here.
For additional strategies on MU, click here.
To analyze, plan and design a results oriented Meaningful Use strategy for 2013 and beyond, contact Sterling Solutions at (800)967-3028 or click here.
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