Earlier this week, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt announced that, “The Meaningful Use program as it has existed, will now be effectively over and replaced with something better.”
However, Slavitt did not specify what “something better” will be, but did state the themes guiding CMS’s design of Meaningful Use’s replacement: (1) Moving away from rewarding providers for the use of technology, and towards the outcomes they achieve with their patients; (2) Enabling providers to customize their goals so tech companies can build around the individual practice needs, not the needs of the government; (3) Leveling the technology playing field for start-ups and new entrants; and (4) Focusing on interoperability and eliminating data blocking. Current meaningful use standards require at least 50 percent of a physician’s patient encounters to be recorded in a certified electronic health record system. ASC physicians in certain specialties may struggle to meet this requirement since there is currently no certified product specifically designed for the ASC setting. It is unclear at this time how a replacement to Meaningful Use may impact ASCs.
This announcement substantially moves up the timeline for eliminating Meaningful Use. Last fall, CMS published a Final Rule, indicating that Meaningful Use would continue until regulations implementing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) took effect. To read more about the Final Rule, please see ASCA’s previous article discussing the rule.
Source: ASCA