Meaningful Use Payouts Hit $19 Billion

The pace of meaningful use payouts has stayed strong of late, with CMS disclosing that it has disbursed more than $19 billion in EMR usage incentives. While hospitals have been particularly prone to stay on the meaningful use train, eligible providers are collecting their payouts too, according to Healthcare IT News.

According to CMS data, there were 440,998 registered providers participating in the federal EMR incentive program as of the end of 2013, who have to date received 19.2 billion in incentives.

About 88 percent of all eligible hospitals have been given EMR incentive payment so far, according to CMS officials.  Also, about 60 percent of Medicare eligible providers are meaningful users of EMRs, the agency reports.

And the meaningful use programs for Medicare and Medicaid are both active, with more than 340,000 eligible providers having received an incentive payments to their program. Medicaid eligible providers are distinctly less likely to be involved in the meaningful use program; only 20 percent of Medicaid EP’s are meaningful users.

What the Healthcare IT News article doesn’t discuss, but ought to, is that there is considerable evidence that many doctors are not willing to push beyond Stage 1 of meaningful use. Stats suggest that these doctors have little financial incentive to move ahead with Stage 2, and can’t afford the time or money to push through the MU 2 obstacles.

In other words, before CMS runs a victory lap, it might do well to see what’s happening with the doctors walking away from the program.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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