Haven’t Been Paid your EHR Incentive Money Yet? One Possible Reason Why

The CMS FAQ site has a great question up that I have a feeling a number of doctors will be interested in knowing the answer to:
I am an eligible professional (EP) who has successfully attested for the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program, so why haven’t I received my incentive payment yet?

Here’s their answer:

For EPs, incentive payments for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program will be made approximately four to eight weeks after an EP successfully attests that they have demonstrated meaningful use of certified EHR technology. However, EPs will not receive incentive payments within that timeframe if they have not yet met the threshold for allowed charges for covered professional services furnished by the EP during the year.

The Medicare EHR incentive payments to EPs are based on 75% of the estimated allowed charges for covered professional services furnished by the EP during the entire payment year. Therefore, to receive the maximum incentive payment of $18,000 for the first year of participation in 2011 or 2012, the EP must accumulate $24,000 in allowed charges. If the EP has not met the $24,000 threshold in allowed charges at the time of attestation, CMS will hold the incentive payment until l the EP meets the $24,000 threshold in order to maximize the amount of the EHR incentive payment the EP receives. If the EP still has not met the $24,000 threshold in allowed charges by the end of calendar year, CMS expects to issue an incentive payment for the EP in March 2012 (allowing 60 days after the end of the 2011 calendar year for all pending claims to be processed).

Payments to Medicare EPs will be made to the taxpayer identification number (TIN) selected at the time of registration, through the same channels their claims payments are made. The form of payment (electronic funds transfer or check) will be the same as claims payments.

Bonus payments for EPs who practice predominantly in a geographic Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) will be made as separate lump-sum payments no later than 120 days after the end of the calendar year for which the EP was eligible for the bonus payment.

For more information about the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, please visit http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms.

This is actually something that I’ve written about before (probably on EMR and HIPAA), but I have a feeling many people weren’t looking at the details to realize why they aren’t getting their incentive money. You have to wait until you have enough Medicare Allowable Charges before they’ll pay you. I think this is a smart plan I do find it interesting that there were some clinics that had enough allowable charges in 3 months to receive the full EHR incentive money right away. I’d love to see some stats on medicare allowable charges per provider. Would be interesting to see how this aspect of the EHR incentive program affects Medicare providers.

Either way, hopefully this information will help someone who is wondering where they EHR incentive money is. Thanks to @jimtate for tweeting the FAQ and reminding me of this part of the program.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

2 Comments

  • We qualified and have been paid just this week. I don’t appreciate the tone of “I do find it interesting that there were some clinics that had enough allowable charges in 3 months to receive the full EHR incentive money right away. I’d love to see some stats on medicare allowable charges per provider.” Why don’t you find it interesting that there are practices that see that many Medicare patients? They are time consuming and complicated. After the money is gone our only incentive is high quality of care for our elderly population.

  • Lisa C,
    Sorry if you didn’t like the tone. It wasn’t a knock on Medicare providers at all. It was just an inquisitive wonder about the state of Medicare and how many providers are still taking care of the often “time consuming and complicated” Medicare population. Especially with all the changes and cuts that have been happening with Medicare. I know many doctors have cut back on their Medicare patient population and so I just wonder how many still have a lot of Medicare patients.

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