CMS and HHS Release New Proposed Rules Governing Health IT – Part 1: Overview of Proposed Rule on “Meaningful Use”
Filed under: EMR, Electronic Medical Records, Health Care Economics
Issues surrounding the implementation of health information technology (HIT) have not garnered anywhere near the amount of attention as issues such as the public plan, the intersection of abortion and health insurance, pre-existing condition provisions, etc. There are a variety of reasons for this.
First, HIT is not as accessible as these other issues. Discussions of HIT often involve the heavy use of acronyms as well as technical jargon that can be intimidating and confusing. This will not likely change in the future. HIT will increase in complexity, especially as variegated computer systems used by providers and hospitals are to be linked together.
A second reason for the lack of coverage of HIT is that there have been few if any significant steps on the federal level towards implementing a national HIT system. As I will discuss below, this is beginning to change, and this change provides for an important New Year’s resolution that all of those interested in health policy should make: stay informed about the changes in the HIT landscape. To make this resolution easier, I will write a series of posts describing the changes.
One of the more recent changes occurred with the passing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and more specifically, portions known as the Health Information Technology and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). The HITECH Act initiated, among other things, an incentive-driven paradigm for transforming our health information system. The general idea is that physicians and hospitals will be paid for using HIT. However, in order for this transformation to take place, guidelines must exist such that physicians, providers and vendors of HIT products understand how to operate within this new system.
On December 30th 2009, CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator of Health and Human Services (ONC), released two rules. ONC released an interim final rule regarding the standards that will govern the Medicare and Medicaid incentive program. Additionally, CMS released their proposed rule on what is considered meaningful use.
The interim final rule regarding the standards can be found here.
The proposed rule regarding meaningful use can be found here.
Meaningful Use
CMS’s proposed rule on meaningful use is important because it defines how physicians and providers must implement HIT in order to qualify for CMS’s incentive payments for the use of such technology. Much of the proposed rule is based on the HIT Policy Committee’s proposals on Meaningful Use, but comments had been solicited and incorporated from other committees, HIT vendors, and providers. The proposed rule states that incentive payments will begin in 2011, and that there will be two different payment methodologies: one for Medicare and one for Medicaid. Those receiving incentives must choose either the Medicaid or the Medicare plan. Furthermore, the rule states that hospitals and providers that are not meaningfully using HIT will have their payments from Medicare reduced, with the reductions taking effect in 2015.
The HITECH Act amended the Social Security Act, and in doing so, incorporated a broad definition of what constitutes a meaningful user of Electronic Health Records (EHR). Specifically for a provider to be a meaningful user they must:
- Demonstrate use of certified EHR technology in a meaningful manner;
- Demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Secretary that certified EHR technology is connected in a manner that provides for the electronic exchange of health information to improve the quality of health care such as promoting care coordination, in accordance with all laws and standards applicable to the exchange of information; and
- Use its certified EHR technology, submits to the Secretary, in a form and manner specified by the Secretary, information on clinical quality measures and other measures specified by the Secretary.
The proposed rule is an extension of this definition, and aims to provide those EPs and hospitals with the proper information to become a meaningful user.
Specifically, the rule provides for two classes of providers to participate in the incentive system: eligible professionals (EPs) and hospitals. EPs are defined as non-hospital-based physicians, who either receive reimbursement for services under the Medicare Fee-For-Service program (FFS) or have an employment or contractual relationship with a qualifying Medicare Advantage organization (MA); or healthcare professionals meeting other requirements. (See page 22 of PDF). Hospitals are defined as hospitals that either receive reimbursement for services under the Medicare FFS program or are affiliated with a qualifying MA organization as described in section 1853(m)(2) of the Act; critical access hospitals (CAHs); or acute care or children’s hospitals. (See page 22 of PDF).
Transitioning to the meaningful use of EHRs will be phased in, taking place in three stages. On page 40 of the proposed rule, CMS describes the stages as follows:
Stage 1 (beginning in 2011): The Stage 1 meaningful use criteria focuses on electronically capturing health information in a coded format; using that information to track key clinical conditions and communicating that information for care coordination purposes (whether that information is structured or unstructured, but in structured format whenever feasible); consistent with other provisions of Medicare and Medicaid law, implementing clinical decision support tools to facilitate disease and medication management; and reporting clinical quality measures and public health information.
Stage 2: Stage 2 expands upon Stage 1 to use HIT for continuous quality improvement at the point of care and the exchange of information in the most structure format possible, such as the electronic transmission of orders entered using computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and the electronic transmission of diagnostic test results such as blood tests and nuclear imaging tests.
Stage 3: Stage 3 focuses on improving the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care, focusing on decision support for national high priority conditions, patient access to self-management tools, access to comprehensive patient data, and improving public health.
The proposed rule that was recently released only describes the specific criteria for Stage 1, with the criteria for Stage 2 and Stage 3 to be released at the end of 2011 and 2013 respectively. In terms of Stage 1 criteria, there is a hierarchy of organizational structure. At the broadest level there are “health outcome policy priorities.” Within each of these policy priorities there is a group of “care goals,” and associated with each group of care goals are the specific “objectives.” CMS has provided a very helpful table which breaks down the hierarchy, including the various objectives. I have extracted the table, which can be accessed here. However, for reference purposes, I have summarized the organization below, and provided the objectives for the first health policy priority. Note that there is a different list of objectives for hospitals, many of which are similar or identical.
The organization is as follows:
Health Outcome Policy Priority 1: Improving quality, safety, efficiency and reducing health disparities.
| Care Goals: 1. Provide access to comprehensive patient health data for patient’s healthcare team 2. Use evidence-based order sets and computerized provider order entry (CPOE) 3. Apply clinical decision support at the point of care 4. Generate lists of patients who need care and use them to reach out+ to those patients. 5. Report information for quality improvement and public reporting. |
Objectives for Eligible Professionals (EPs): 1. Use Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) 2. Implement drug-drug, drug-allergy, drug-formulary checks. 3. Maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses based on ICD-9-CM or SNOMED CT®. 4. Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx). 5. Maintain active medication list. 6. Maintain active medication allergy list. 7. Record demographics 8. Record and chart changes in the following vital signs 9. Record smoking status for patients 13 years old or older. 10. Incorporate clinical lab-test results into EHR as structured data. 11. Generate lists of patients by specific conditions to use for quality improvement, reduction of disparities, research, and outreach. 12. Report ambulatory quality measures to CMS (or, for EPs seeking the Medicaid incentive payment, the States) 13. Send reminders to patients per patient preference for preventive/follow-up care. 14. Implement five clinical decision support rules relevant to specialty or high clinical priority, including for diagnostic test ordering, along with the ability to track compliance with those rules. 15. Check insurance eligibility electronically from public and private payers. 16. Submit claims electronically to public and private payers. |
Health Outcome Policy Priority 2: Engaging patients and families in their healthcare
- Care Goal 1: Provide patients and families with timely access to data, knowledge, and tools to make informed decisions.
Health Outcome Policy Priority 3: Improving care coordination
- Care Goal 1: Exchange meaningful clinical information among professional health care team.
Interestingly, for CPOE, EPs are required to use CPOE for at least 80 percent of all orders whereas hospitals are only required to use CPOE for 10 percent of orders. Why such a discrepancy exists is presently unclear.
In terms of the requirement for reporting clinical quality measures (as described in the original definition of meaningful use in the HITECH Act), the proposed rule adopts different measurements for EPs and hospitals. For EPs, the proposed rule utilizes the quality measures endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF) including selected for the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) program that had previously been endorsed by the NQF. For hospitals, the measures are a combination of the NQF measures and those measures from the Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU).
Reporting of these clinical quality measures would be accomplished by one of three methods. The primary method would require EPs or hospitals to log onto a CMS-designated portal and upload the clinical quality data in a specific data structure (as defined by the ONC’s standards). Alternatively, data could be submitted through a Health Information Exchange(HIE)/Health Information Organization (HIO) depending on whether the Secretary can access that network. Another alternative is submission through registries dependent upon the development of the necessary capacity and infrastructure to do so using certified EHRs. See page 169 of the PDF for more details on the uploading process.
As discussed earlier on this blog, one aspect of the transition that remains to be addressed is whether the incentives provided to EPs and hospitals will be sufficient to encourage physicians to take on the initial outlays associated with EHRs. H.R. 3014 ,a bill to provide loans guarantees to solo and small group practices, has been passed by the House and is currently being reviewed by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Without such measures to spur the initial implementation of EHRs, the incentives or downward payment adjustments may not be sufficient to implement the bold plan set out by CMS.
Reform Rodeo
Photo by David Monniaux
1. At the New England Journal of Medicine, David Cutler discusses possible reasons why the health care cost curve may bend in the future even without health reform.
2. Matthew Yglesias discusses health reform’s “labor problem.”
3. Ezra Klein points to the findings of a study that may undermine the common assumption that calorie labels in fast food restaurants reduce caloric intake.
4. At ABC Australia, an interesting and moving piece about the consequences of the patenting of the BRCA genetic test.
5. For those interested in the administrative side of health reform, Jacqueline Klosek describes and links to a notification and instruction form that HHS has provided to help covered entities comply with the HITECH Act’s new breach notification rules which are now in force.
6. Wild Card: The Lifehacker blog has a post describing a new “mash up” site called Data Masher that allows users to overlay freely accessible statistics onto maps. One of the “mash ups” available is a U.S. map with high school education and health care coverage overlayed.
7. In case you missed it: Professor Tim Greaney in The Health Care Blog with a post on Medicare & Health Reform originally posted here on HRW.
