How carefully is HHS reviewing the more than 2,000 comments on the proposal for meaningful use of EMRs? On Monday, National Health IT Coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal and two top CMS officials participated in a "listening session" with 15 hospital leaders to hear the concerns that many hospitals and health systems have with the proposed rules.
The unspecified hospital executives reiterated points brought up in the American Hospital Association's formal comments on the proposal, including their belief that CMS sets such a "high bar" for achieving meaningful use that many hospitals would be unable to qualify for federal EMR incentives. And not just in fiscal year 2011, the first year of the program. Some are concerned that they won't be able to get to meaningful use before CMS starts imposing Medicare and Medicaid penalties for noncompliance in 2015.
Some of the hospital leaders later met with the White House Office of Management and Budget on the same subject.
For more:
- see this AHA News brief