Meaningful use help
from TMA
“I’ve met nine out of the 10 require-
ments,” the Houston neurologist and past chair of the Texas Medical Asso- ciation Council on Science and Public Health said. “This is the one that I don’t know how to meet.” Dr. Gilmer had until March 1 — the
For questions on meaningful use or other practice technologies, contact TMA’s Health Information Technology Department by email at
hit@texmed.org or by calling (800) 880-5720.
60-day mark of the electronic health record (EHR) reporting period — to register to submit data with public health agencies to meet objective 10. “I don’t know what’s going to hap-
pen,” he said. “I’m trying to decide how to proceed for 2016 report- ing, and I still don’t know whether I should sign up for things just for the sake of signing up for them to be able to check the box.” Other physicians are reporting
problems with meeting objective 10, making it another facet of meaning- ful use that frustrates practitioners as they try to navigate the EHR incentive program. For instance, Houston neurologist Randolph Evans, MD, who’s consid- ering forgoing meaningful use in 2016, says the public health reporting objec- tive simply has no relevance to his out- patient neurology practice. “It’s just something else that tells
me that the policymakers are remote from most physicians,” Dr. Evans said. “In other words, many physicians are going to look at this and say, ‘What does this have to do with my practice? Why am I being asked to do things that don’t have anything to do with what I do?’” Dr. Evans says he received a hard-
ship exception from meaningful use in 2015. Before proceeding in 2016, he says he was awaiting more details from CMS about a January announce- ment by Acting Director Andy Slavitt implying changes were on the way for the meaningful use program. (See “Putting the ‘Meaning’ in Meaningful Use,” April 2016 Texas Medicine, pag- es 37–41, or visit
www.texmed.org/ MeaninginMeaningfulUse.) For Dr. Gilmer’s part, he says he
wants to see CMS put the public health reporting objective on “perma-
50 TEXAS MEDICINE May 2016
nent hold” until meaningful use par- ticipants are ready for it. “It’s not ready for use,” he said, “be-
cause the terms are unclear and un- defined, because the registries don’t exist, because the EHR vendors are not able to connect with the registries when they are developed, and because [the] EHR has not been required to provide the hookup, and the doctor is the only one that’s been required to do this.”
“ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT” NOT SO EASY Starting in 2015, CMS eliminated the EHR incentive program’s distinction between the core objectives practi- tioners must meet and “menu” objec- tives from which practitioners could choose a partial list to meet. Now, all participating practitioners must meet 10 specified objectives. Objectives in- clude using technology to safeguard electronic protected health informa- tion; providing patients access to their health information electronically; using secure electronic messaging to communicate with patients about their health information; and gener- ating and transmitting prescriptions electronically. For complete information on pro-
gram requirements for this year, visit tma.tips/EHRIncentive2016. To meet the public health reporting
objective, physicians must meet two of these three measures:
• Measure 1: Active engagement with a public health agency to submit immunization data;
• Measure 2: Active engagement with a public agency to submit syn- dromic surveillance data; and
• Measure 3: Active engagement to submit data to a specialized regis- try.
CMS offers exclusions for each
measure. For example, physicians can claim an exclusion from the special- ized registry measure if they don’t di- agnose or treat a condition associated with a relevant specialized registry
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