The deadline for President Obama’s electronic medical record (EMR) mandate is coming up and failure to comply is gonna cost ya’.
As part of the president’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, the EMR law requires medical establishments, including hospitals, clinics, specialist and primary care providers, to scan documents and make the transition to electronic medical records by 2015, or face penalties. Medical facilities will be reviewed over a period of 90 days and must sufficiently demonstrate “meaningful use” of EMR services in order to qualify for incentives or avoid penalties.
Incentives
The Obama administration is offering financial incentives for medical practices that comply with program. According to the timeline, doctors may be eligible for over $44,000 in bonus Medicare reimbursements or $63,750 in Medicaid reimbursements over a five year period. Each year the reimbursement amounts varied, and only doctors who switched over to electronic medical records before 2012 would be able to receive the maximum reimbursement amount.
Penalties
Those who do not comply with the new law may face up to $1.5 million in penalties on Medicare reimbursements beginning January 1, 2015. Medical providers will see a 1% reductions in their reimbursements each year, capping at 3% in 2017. If at that point 75% of health care providers are not using EMR program “meaningfully, the penalties will cap at 5% in 2018. In order to avoid penalties, medical professionals and hospitals should begin the process sooner rather than later, since it may take up to a full year from the date of application for the 90-day “meaningful use” review periods to occur.
Meaningful Use
In order to qualify for the funds, medical facilities must prove that they are making “meaningful use” of technologies, in an efficient, cost-saving ways. The guidelines include 24 objectives, 19 of which must be met, for qualifying private practice professionals. For hospitals,18 of 23 specified objectives must be met. Scantronix provides the first step, offering medical practices and hospitals step-by-step service and advice, from document scanning to OCR conversion, in order ensure that the criteria can be met.