A majority of physicians believe that they can meet the proposed Stage 3 objectives by the 2018 deadline, but have little love for the program itself, according to a new survey.
The survey, designed by Healthcare Informatics and conducted by QuantiaMD, a Massachusetts-based social network for physicians, polled 150 doctors about the proposed rule implementing Stage 3, which was released March 20. Seventy-one percent said that they could meet Stage 3's eight objectives by 2018, which is when compliance would no longer be optional.
However, only 38 percent said that the government did a "fair" job with the proposed rules, and many respondents expressed disdain for the program itself; several even recommended that the program be abolished. Some of the biggest concerns about Stage 3 included the imposition of penalties, the timelines and the difficulty of getting patients to sign up to access their electronic health records.
More than half (53.3 percent) named patient engagement as the objective that would be most difficult to meet, followed by coordination of care, at 42.7 percent. The three objectives seen as easiest to meet were electronic prescribing, health information exchange and protecting patient information.
The proposed rules come at a time when the Meaningful Use program has come under increasing scrutiny and is somewhat in flux. Physician adoption of EHRs appears to be leveling off, although more payment models require the use of such systems. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MICRA), which would repeal the sustainable growth rate formula and which has passed in the House, also would substantially revamp the Meaningful Use program.
To learn more:
- read about the survey