The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology late Friday, August 29 released the final rule providing several options for achieving meaningful use in 2014.
This final rule essentially maintains the content of the notice of proposed rulemaking that was released in May of this year. We discussed this at several of our consortium webinars during that time.
Essentially the rule allows the use of a 2011 Version of a certified EHR with the 2013 meaningful use objectives and measures. It also provides the ability to combine 2011 and 2014 certified versions or simply if you are ready use the 2014 version and meaningful use objectives and measures. However it does allow organizations who are required to reach stage 2 and have implemented a 2014 certified EHR the option to choose to attest to stage one meaningful use objectives and measures albeit these must be based upon the 2014 criteria.
Several minor changes are also included to provide CQM exemptions for low-volume situations which may be applicable to some of our critical access hospitals that have very few discharges during a quarter. Some of these changes also extend to the transitions of care referrals as well as methods for calculating the electronic Exchange of laboratory results to community physicians.
At our next consortium webinar we will incorporate a short recap of this final rule.
Additionally the final rule provides needed to guidance regarding what would constitute an appropriate reason for not attesting with a 2014 certified version. This guidance discusses the basis for considering a vendor delay as the reason. We want to remind everybody that it is essential to maintain written documentation along with evidence to support the use of the vendor delay reason. As many of you have already witnessed during a follow-up meaningful use audit documentation that can be produced is critical.
This too will be covered both at our next consortium webinar and the upcoming annual meeting in October.
If you have any questions regarding Final rule please send them to our meaningful use team.
Danette Swanson – ds@coruralhealth.org
David Ginsberg – dginsberg@privaplan.com
Lil Sonntag – ls@coruralhealth.org
Michelle Stuhr – ms@coruralhealth.org
