“We couldn’t have gotten to this point and earned the incentives we did without the help of the REC.”
Achieving meaningful use Physicians in the Medicare incentive pro- gram can earn up to $44,000 over five years for meeting meaningful use crite- ria from 2011 to 2016. Eligible Medicare physicians in a health professional short- age area receive a 10-percent increase in incentives. Attestation forms for the Medicare EHR incentive program are available on the TMA website at www
.texmed.org/medicareehr/. Gonzales solo family physician Garth
Vaz, MD, says the CentrEast REC was in- valuable in helping him meet the Medi- care meaningful use criteria. His practice implemented an EHR system in 2009. “Last August I started looking into
tion and problem lists. We don’t have to guess. That’s one of the many benefits of achieving meaningful use and lever- aging the EHR more fully. We couldn’t have gotten to this point and earned the incentives we did without the help of the REC,” Dr. Sawyer said. The Office of the National Coordina-
tor for Health Information Technology (ONC) funds the national REC program with a $721 million allocation. Texas’ RECs have received $38.2 million from ONC, allocated as follows:
• North Texas REC,
www.ntrec.org, anchored by the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Foundation, $8.8 million;
• Gulf Coast REC,
www.uthouston.edu/ gcrec, led by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, $15.7 million;
• CentrEast REC,
www.centreastrec.org, directed by the Texas A&M Health
Science Center-Rural and Community Health Institute, $6.4 million; and
• West Texas REC,
www.wtxhitrec.org, headed by Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, $7.1 million.
To find out which REC serves your re-
gion and to access contact information for each center, visit
www.texmed.org/ rec. On the website you can also view an informative video on how RECs help physicians adopt EHRs and earn federal incentive payments for meeting mean- ingful use criteria. (See “TMA Meets Your HIT Needs,” opposite page.) The Texas Medical Association has en-
sured physician involvement in govern- ing each Texas REC. At least half of the members of each REC board are physi- cians nominated by TMA and the county medical societies. Under the federal program, the RECs
receive government funding for four years. After 2014, they’ll have to fend for themselves fi- nancially. All four centers are devel- oping sustainability models to help en- sure their economic survival and to con- tinue helping physi- cians meaningfully use their EHRs.
Joseph Schneider, MD
Kim Dunn, MD 32 TEXAS MEDICINE June 2012
Robert D. Dewitt, MD
the Medicare incentive program and the meaningful use criteria. I realized I couldn’t do this myself; it was more com- plicated than I imagined,” he said. “A representative from the REC came to my office and guided me and my five staff members in using the EHR to achieve meaningful use.” Dr. Vaz received his $18,000 Medi-
care incentive payment earlier this year. “I would recommend physicians enroll
in their area REC. It’s a small investment that pays off,” he said. On the Medicaid side, non-hospital-
based eligible physicians with at least 30-percent Medicaid patient volume can receive up to $63,750 over six years in incentive payments from 2011 to 2021. Non-hospital-based eligible pediatricians with at least 20-percent Medicaid patient volume could get up to $42,500 during the same period. Medicaid doesn’t require program participants to achieve meaningful use until the second year. In year one of par- ticipation with the Medicaid program, a physician can earn an incentive payment of up to $21,500 for certifying that he or she has adopted, implemented, or upgraded to a certified EHR system. For year two, the physician must meet 90 days of meaningful use. Once the physi- cian has fulfilled meaningful use for 90 days, he or she can then attest to receive the year-two payment of $8,500. Physicians in the Medicaid incen-
tive program who successfully attested to first-year requirements in 2011 may now certify meeting Stage 1 meaningful
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