Important December Deadline Approaching

Get Paid for 2012: Stay Informed of Key Program Deadlines

December 31 deadline 

The reporting year ends on December 31, 2012 for eligible professionals (EPs) participating in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs in 2012. For participating EPs, this means they must have completed their 90 or 365-day reporting period (within the calendar year) by the end of 2012 in order to receive an incentive payment.

When do I attest?

Medicare EPs must complete attestation for the 2012 program year by February 28, 2013, but can attest as soon as their reporting period is complete.  CMS encourages EPs to register and attest sooner rather than later to resolve any potential issues that may delay their payment. 

Medicaid EPs should check with their State for their attestation deadline.

Resources from CMS

CMS has several resources located on the EHR Incentive Programs website to help EPs properly meet meaningful use and attest, including:

• A Registration & Attestation page on the CMS EHR Incentive Programs website that houses information on registration and attestation, and includes links to additional resources. 


• The Meaningful Use Attestation Calculator allows EPs and eligible hospitals to determine if they have met the Stage 1 meaningful use guidelines before they attest in the system. The calculator prints a copy of each EP's or eligible hospital's specific measure summary. 


• The Attestation User Guide for Medicare Eligible Professionals provides step-by-step guidance for EPs participating in the Medicare EHR Incentive Program on navigating the attestation system. 


• The Attestation Worksheet for EPs allows users to enter their meaningful use measure values, creating a quick reference tool to use while attesting.

Want more information about the EHR Incentive Programs?

Make sure to visit the EHR Incentive Programs website for the latest news and updates on the EHR Incentive Programs.

Get Paid for 2012: Stay Informed of Key Program Deadlines

December 31 deadline 

The reporting year ends on December 31, 2012 for eligible professionals (EPs) participating in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs in 2012. For participating EPs, this means they must have completed their 90 or 365-day reporting period (within the calendar year) by the end of 2012 in order to receive an incentive payment.

When do I attest?

Medicare EPs must complete attestation for the 2012 program year by February 28, 2013, but can attest as soon as their reporting period is complete.  CMS encourages EPs to register and attest sooner rather than later to resolve any potential issues that may delay their payment. 

Medicaid EPs should check with their State for their attestation deadline.

Resources from CMS

CMS has several resources located on the EHR Incentive Programs website to help EPs properly meet meaningful use and attest, including:

• A Registration & Attestation page on the CMS EHR Incentive Programs website that houses information on registration and attestation, and includes links to additional resources.


• The Meaningful Use Attestation Calculator allows EPs and eligible hospitals to determine if they have met the Stage 1 meaningful use guidelines before they attest in the system. The calculator prints a copy of each EP's or eligible hospital's specific measure summary.


• The Attestation User Guide for Medicare Eligible Professionals provides step-by-step guidance for EPs participating in the Medicare EHR Incentive Program on navigating the attestation system.


• The Attestation Worksheet for EPs allows users to enter their meaningful use measure values, creating a quick reference tool to use while attesting.

Want more information about the EHR Incentive Programs?

Make sure to visit the EHR Incentive Programs website for the latest news and updates on the EHR Incentive Programs.

Where to Find ICD-10 Information

On October 1, 2014, you and your practice will be required to switch from the familiar ICD-9 code set to more detailed ICD-10 codes. While ICD-10 contains many more codes, your practice will continue to use only codes that are relevant to the patients you treat. 

Think about your office today – you have been using the same ICD-9 codes for years and have probably memorized the ones you work with most frequently. To prepare for the new code set:

• Identify the diagnoses you most frequently code.


• Use an ICD-10 code book or software tool to look up these diagnoses and review the potential new codes for the best match.


• Understand how your clinicians communicate with your coding/billing colleagues: What words do they use to describe their routine protocols to coders/billers?


• Identify how your practice will enter key words, medical notes, and content in medical records so the protocols are clearly communicated.


• Discuss changes that may occur in clinical documentation to support ICD-10 code selection.


• As you begin testing ICD-10 in the coming year, share your ICD-10 code interpretation and selections with your colleagues to minimize the learning curve and avoid miscommunications.

You may notice multiple ICD-10 codes for a given ICD-9 code. The ICD-10 code structure accommodates more information than the ICD-9 structure, for added detail. The result is a more complete picture of complex medical conditions that your clinical documentation will need to capture. 

To take advantage of the power of ICD-10, your practice will need to:

• Look at how ICD-10 codes differ from ICD-9 codes for your most common diagnoses.


• Identify what additional documentation or descriptive language clinicians might need to include to ensure selection of the correct ICD-10 code.

Keep Up to Date on ICD-10

Visit the CMS ICD-10 website for the latest news and resources to help you prepare.

For practical transition tips:

• Read recent ICD-10 email update messages

Access the ICD-10 continuing medical education modulesdeveloped by CMS in partnership with Medscape

CMS and ONC Release New EHR Regulation Affecting Hospitals

Review the Changes to the EHR Incentive Programs for Hospitals Included in New Interim Final Rule with Comment

CMS and ONC have released an Interim Final Rule with Comment (IFC) that makes several changes to the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs and 2014 Edition EHR Certification Criteria that will affect hospitals. The rule also provides notice of CMS's intention to issue technical corrections to the electronic specifications for clinical quality measures (CQMs) released on October 25, 2012.

The IFC's major changes include:

• Revising the regulation text for the hospital measures for the objective of making patient information available online. The measure will now base the denominator not on all patients, but all unique patients.

• Expanding the denominator options for the objective of sending electronic lab results to ambulatory providers. It now allows hospitals to choose between a denominator of all lab orders received from ambulatory providers or all lab orders received electronically from ambulatory providers.

• Moving the CQM minimum denominator threshold effective date from 2014 to 2013, so hospitals can begin taking advantage of this flexibility right away.

More information about the comment period will be included in an upcoming listserv.

 

Want more information about the EHR Incentive Programs?

Make sure to visit the EHR Incentive Programs website for the latest news and updates on the EHR Incentive Programs.

Medicaid managed care plan leaders do not consistently use quality metrics to address disparities

According to findings reported in “The Role of Data in Health Care Disparities in Medicaid Managed Care,” published in Volume 2, Issue 4 of the Medicare & Medicaid Research Review, leaders at Medicaid managed care plans in California do not routinely use quality metrics, such as HEDIS, to assess disparities despite having access to data on beneficiary race and ethnicity. While leaders described efforts to improve overall quality as driven by standardized metrics, this did not hold for efforts to reduce disparities. Data were frequently only examined by race and ethnicity when overall performance on a measure was low. Disparities were attributed to either individual choices or to cultural and linguistic factors, with plans focusing interventions on recently immigrated groups, despite trends in HEDIS measures that often did not support this focus.

Read the full article:

http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and Systems/Research/MMRR/Downloads/MMRR2012_002_04_A02.pdf

Citation:

Moskowitz, D., Guthrie, B., & Bindman, A. B. (2012). The Role of Data in Health Care Disparities in Medicaid Managed Care. Medicare Care & Medicaid Research Review, 2(4), E1–E15.