Understanding Federal and State Stimulus Incentives for your Medical Practice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) August 17, 2009 -- HITECH Act 2009 EHR Incentives

The HITECH Act is the Health Information Technology (HIT) section, under the recently approved American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Under HITECH, the government has allocated $19.2 billion in incentives to adopt EHR technology.

The recovery bill commits $19 billion in grants and incentives for companies and practices to buy health information technology in an effort to improve efficiency and quality in the health system. The funding will be allocated as follows:

1

Understanding Federal and State Stimulus Incentives for your Medical Practice

Welcome visit Our WebSite:

http://www.octavesolutions.com

$17.2 billion will be distributed in pay-for-use funding for those proving "meaningful use" of certified EHRs.
$2 billion in "jump start" funds to develop the infrastructure and programs to increase HIT adoption.

Eligibility for HITECH Act 2009 Incentives
Providers that implement and have a meaningful use of a certified EHR prior to 2015 are eligible for incentives.

Meaningful users are those that meet each of the following criteria:

Uses a certified EHR / EMR software solution (Can be either client server or ASP based)
Submits most prescriptions electronically
Reports clinical quality measures

Has an EHR / EMR solution that interconnects electronically for healthcare delivery (HL7 – Health Level Seven)
eports billing codes indicating that patient encounters were recorded using an EHR.
Meaningful use is still evolving.

How does a provider demonstrate "meaningful" use of EHR / EMR?
A professional must satisfy the demonstration requirement through means specified by the Secretary which may include the following:

Self attestation
Submission of claims with appropriate coding
Survey response
Reporting

Which EHRs / EMRs are eligible for funding or reimbursement?

A certified EHR / EMR technology is one that meets specific standards outlined in the bill. CCHIT Certification sets some standards for EHR / EMR products and has the potential to reduce buying risk for purchasers.

What are the incentives and when will you receive them?
Medicare - Physicians seeing Medicare patients can receive a maximum of $44K over the course of 5 years. An additional 25% is available to physicians operating in a designated Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA)...

Download the entire White Paper: http://www.octavesolutions.com/comment.php?comment.news.11

More information can be found online at http://www.octavesolutions.com

care     ehr     ehr stimulus     emr     emr stimulus     federal     health     health care     incentives     stimulus