This post is part of the MACRA Monday series of blog posts where we dive into the details of the MACRA Quality Payment Program.
In case you missed it, eCW settled a whistleblower lawsuit for $155 million. At the core of the lawsuit were the Medicare meaningful use payments that were paid to eCWs customers. The lawsuit alleged that eCW had been inappropriately certified as an EHR and told their customers that they were appropriately certified.
Many in the industry including myself are suggesting that eCW isn’t the only EHR vendor that could run into these types of issues. It’s quite easy for an EHR vendor to pass the EHR certification test. It’s another thing to have actually implemented all of the EHR certification requirements. We’ll see what other lawsuits come forward.
What does this settlement mean for MACRA?
Before the eCW settlement, many in the EHR industry didn’t realize their risk profile because their customers were getting government money. Once your customers start taking government money, the legal framework really changes. This is going to be true with the MACRA program as well.
It behooves every EHR vendor to really make sure they are following the spirit of the law and not just trying to game the EHR certification process (which we all know is easily gamed). I expect that most EHR vendors will step up their game and make a good faith effort to comply. I think this is the hope of the US Attorney’s office given their press release about the settlement.
We’re still waiting to see if the eCW settlement will cause any issues for eCW users who attested with the inappropriately certified eCW software. My prediction is that they’ll be fine, but some have argued that their meaningful use incentive payments could be pulled too. If that happens, that could really impact participation in the MACRA/MIPS program.
You can be sure that healthcare organization’s compliance officers are going to spend more time verifying their EHR vendor’s certification. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some new contracts that include some new language to cover the healthcare organization if their EHR has issues similar to eCW.
One other thing that might be an issue is those organizations that choose to switch to a new EHR from eCW. EHR switching has always been an issue when it comes to meaningful use and now MACRA and MIPS. We’ll have to dive into EHR switching and MACRA in a future post.
What impact do you think the eCW settlement will have on MACRA?