Meaningful use funds already have begun to flow. Within just two days of the Jan. 3, 2011 registration startup, three providers had received checks from the Medicaid program.
In Lexington, Ky., University of Kentucky Healthcare and Central Baptist Hospital received $2.8 million and $1.3 million, respectively, while two physicians at the Gastorf Family Clinic in Durant, Okla., earned $21,250 apiece. The Gastorf payments were the first official payments made under the EHR incentive program, according to CMS officials.
"We are excited and pleased that both of our physicians were eligible professionals for the incentives, netting our clinic a check for $42,500, the first year's installment in the program," says Darrell Ledbetter, Gastorf's practice manager.
Twenty-five more providers in Kentucky alone had applied for incentive funds by the end of the first week, according to state officials, and in the next four years, Kentucky is expected to receive more than $100 million in incentive payments for hospitals to ensure that its health care community is working to implement electronic health record systems
Read more:
- read this press release from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services
- check out this e-MDs press release