The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' proposed rule updating the hospital inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) for fiscal year 2015 recommends a number of changes to the Meaningful Use electronic health record incentive program. For instance, it proposes to better align the incentive program with the hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program, which would incrementally shift the timeline for reporting Meaningful Use to a calendar year and require quarterly reporting of clinical quality measures (CQMs).
The proposed rule would also tweak some of the CQM reporting requirements to impact this alignment. Additionally, CMS would allow the continued submission of aggregate CQM data via attestation in 2015 because electronic reporting is not yet "feasible." On the payment side, the payment rate for inpatient stays in general acute care hospitals paid under IPPS for those hospitals that successfully participate in the IQR program and are Meaningful Users will see an increase of 1.3 percent. Any hospital not a Meaningful User will see payments reduced by one-fourth of the market-basket update in FY 2015; one-half of the market-basket update in 2016; and three-fourths in 2017 and beyond.
The rule was released April 30 and is expected to be published in the Federal Register May 15.