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.

 

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