Meaningful Use Attestation

Last week CMS announced that attestation for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program (Stage 1 of Meaningful Use) will open on April 18, 2011.

Their announcement includes screenshots of the attestation website that will be used by eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals to document meaningful use of certified EHR technology.

Prior to attestation, all providers must register through CMS' web-based Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program Registration and Attestation System.

The screen shots (such as the sample above) suggest that attestation will require detailed data entry including numerator, denominator, and exclusion results for meaningful use core measures, meaningful use menu measures, core clinical quality measures, alternate core clinical quality measures (required only if a core quality measure has a denominator of zero), and additional clinical quality measures (applies only to eligible professionals).

In preparation for all of these metrics, BIDMC created reports last Summer (sample for August-October 2010) to help us track our progress.   For the measurement period from January 1 to April 1, 2011,  BIDMC has achieved all meaningful use thresholds using our CCHIT EACH Certified EHR, so we plan to attest on April 18.

Once eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals complete a successful online submission through the Attestation System, they qualify for a Medicare EHR incentive payment.

For the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, providers will follow a similar process using their state's Attestation System.  Information on state Medicaid timelines and programs is available here.

It will be fascinating to see how many hospitals and eligible providers attest in the early months of the program.     CMS plans to take a careful look at the progress on Stage 1 before finalizing its plans for Stage 2.