Last time we wrote about the new provisions in the HITECH Act that could provide medical providers with up to $44,000 in Medicare credits or up to $65,000 in Medicaid credits by switching to electronic medical records (EMR). In order to qualify for these credits, you need to be able to show that you meet the 25 requirements for meaningful use in your practice. In other words, your EMR system has to be able to do the following 25 things:
1. Use Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) for all orders. CPOE is a program for quickly and accurately ordering prescription drugs
2. Implement drug-drug, drug-allergy, drug-formulary checks
3. Maintain an up to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses based on ICD-9 or SNOMED
4. Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically
5. Maintain active medication list
6. Maintain active medication allergy list
7. Record demographics
8. Record vital signs, BMI and related patient data
9. Record smoking status
10. Incorporate lab-test results into EMR as structured data
11. Generate lists of patients by specific conditions to use for quality improvement, reduction of disparities, and outreach
12. Report ambulatory quality measures to CMS
13. Send reminders to patients per patient preference for preventive/ follow up care
14. Implement 5 clinical decision support rules relevant to specialty or high clinical priority
15. Check insurance eligibility electronically from public and private payers, where possible
16. Submit claims electronically to public and private payers
17. Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information (including problem lists and medication lists) upon request
18. Provide patients with an electronic copy of their discharge information and procedures
19. Provide patients with timely electronic access to their health information (including problem lists and medication lists)
20. Provide clinical summaries for patients for each encounter
21. Capability to exchange key clinical information (e.g., problem list, medication list, allergies, test results) among providers of care and patient authorized entities electronically
22. Perform medication reconciliation at relevant encounters and each transition of care
23. Capability to submit electronic data to immunization registries and action submission where required and accepted
24. Capability to provide electronic syndrome surveillance data to public health agencies and actual transmission according to applicable law and practice
25. Protect electronic health information created or maintained by the EMR using appropriate technical capabilities
Your current software provider should be able to tell you whether they meet these meaningful use criteria. Some we have seen will even offer a guarantee based on their ability to meet these criteria if you are using or choose to use their software product. If you would like assistance determining which software and provider will help your practice qualify for this credit, we are here to help.