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E M R
R E A D E R
S U R V E Y
MEANINGFUL USE
Patients like
Getting Paid for EMR
M
ore than $6.1 billion in Medicare EHR
Incentive Program payments have
been made between May 2011 and the
end of 2012, and Medicaid has paid out $4.3 billion
in EHR incentives since January 2011 — more than
$1.2 billion of that occurring in December 2012,
scooped up by more than 190,000 healthcare
providers nationwide (up from 100,000 in June 2012).
In our EMR survey, nearly two-thirds (65.1%) of
hospital respondents said they'd qualified for financial incentives for using EMR under the ARRA and
HITECH Acts. In line with those numbers, some
found it "complex" or "very difficult" to qualify. But
most think "it's spelled out completely and easy to
apply for," and 1 reader has even met meaningful
use criteria for stage 1, and is working on advancing clinical processes so her facility will ahead of
the curve for 2014's requirements.
— Stephanie Wasek
this, so long as
you assure them
their e-mail
addresses won't
be sold or used
unethically,
because it lets
them share
information
quickly, which is
important to
them. For us,
we're able to
add the text of
the e-mail to the
patient chart,
which is even
better than a
one-sentence
summary of a
On The Web
phone follow-up.
For more on Medicare EHR Incentive Payments,
go to tinyurl.com/843gv26
Another big
stumbling block
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | F E B R U A R Y 2013
