Despite increasing awareness and implementation of Meaningful Use reporting among medical professionals, clinics and hospitals this year, over 250,000 of providers will receive a penalty come January 1 for failing to meet Meaningful Use requirements.

While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had granted providers an extended deadline back in October to file hardship exception applications by November 30, approximately 257,000 of these eligible professionals, hospitals and medical offices neither met Meaningful Use attestation nor were certified for exemption from the penalties. Consequently, these providers will see their Medicare reimbursements cut by 1 percent starting January 1, 2015. Another 28,000 healthcare professionals will see a 2 percent reduction for failing to adhere to the electronic prescribing incentive program, in addition to falling short of Meaningful Use criteria.

According to CMS, 55,000 of the providers who applied for Meaningful Use hardship were granted exemptions. Another 2,000 applications had been rejected, but the agency notes that many of these providers had met the requirements for Meaningful Use reporting anyway.

Avoiding incentive penalties like these are one of the most immediate reasons why more providers should upgrade their chiropractic EHR systems to Meaningful Use (and in particular, Stage 2) standards. While some may fret about the cost that a new chiropractic EHR software might have on their bottom line, there's no more readily apparent cut into revenue than a CMS penalty. 

But Meaningful Use doesn't just make financial sense, it also helps improve patient care experiences. With new Meaningful Use-compliant software in place, clinics and medical professionals can provide patients with more accurate diagnoses while also enabling more easily shared information and streamlined recordkeeping.

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In response to impending deadlines and sluggish adoption rates among providers, the American Medical Association (AMA) is officially urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to remove the penalties for not meeting Meaningful Use EHR reporting requirements.

"The AMA has been calling for policymakers to refocus the Meaningful Use program on interoperability for quite some time," Steven Jack, the association's president-elect, said in a press release. "The whole point of the Meaningful Use incentive program was to allow for the secure exchange of information across settings and providers and right now that type of sharing and coordination is not happening on a wide scale for reasons outside physicians' control. Physicians want to improve the quality of care and usable, interoperable electronic health records are a pathway to achieving that goal."

According to the AMA, only 2 percent of physicians across the country have been able to meet reporting requirements for Meaningful Use Stage 2 thus far — ensuring that an overwhelming majority of providers will incur penalties if they do not integrate Stage 2 compliant EHR software before the November 30 hardship deadline. To that end, the association is asking CMS to suspend penalties and work greater flexibility into the program to help more physicians and clinics upgrade their chiropractic EHR systems without suffering undue penalties in the process.

CMS has remained adamant in adhering to implementation deadlines for both Meaningful Use and ICD-10, with both the federal agency and providers alike noting that further delays on either initiative will only put the healthcare industry behind even more. At the same time, the AMA's argument is that the benefits of chiropractic EHR software are moot if physicians are unable to adopt the new system in time — and having to contend with accumulating penalties along the way will only hamper those adoption efforts even more.

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Last week's midterm elections saw the Republican party retake the Senate, giving them control of both houses of Congress for the first time in eight years. While the country has looked at a number of hot issues sure to be affected by this shift in power — from immigration to climate change — one that has seen little publicity has been how a Republican-led Congress will affect the healthcare industry's road to Meaningful Use Stage 2 adoption. With the old legislation and deadlines passed under a Democratic administration, could a Republican shift bring disruptions to the process? Or does the GOP turnover present more benefits than drawbacks for providers?

"The near-term impact is, just by virtue of a balance of power shift, that it created new opportunities for old ideas," Jeff Smith, the College of Health Information Management Executives' (CHIME) public policy director, tells TechTarget. "Now we might have an audience in the Senate that just might be willing to address problems in the administration of the meaningful use system and how the regulations have been written."

CIOs and other health IT providers had increasingly grown critical of Congress' expedited pace of Meaningful Use adoption, with many doctors, clinicians and hospital administrators complaining that stringent deadlines were leaving little room for properly integrating Stage 2 reporting into their chiropractic EHR systems and actually learning the ropes of what these chiropractic EHR software packages entail. 

While incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made no public remarks about what new approach, if any, the Senate will be taking to accommodating providers' needs, many CIOs are at least optimistic that a change in leadership will provide an opportunity for a new dialogue on how to reform the meaningful use system.

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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a bevy of new numbers pointing to the progress made in Meaningful Use Stage 2 adoption so far. According to the CMS data, as of November 1, over 500,000 providers have registered for Meaningful Use's Medicare and Medicaid incentives program, which by the end of September 30, has already given out over $25 billion in reimbursements to eligible hospitals and physicians.

Industry news provider iHealthBeat reports that the number of eligible professionals actually attesting to Meaningful Use compliance spans 43,893 individuals — 15,841 of whom are new. Additionally, of the 1,903 hospitals reporting Meaningful Use attestation, 221 are new participants. However, only about one-quarter of these professionals (11,478) and less than half of participating hospitals (840) have actually achieved Stage 2 reporting.

While the participant numbers look relatively low right now, Dawn Heisey-Grove of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT expects Stage 2 attestations to jump significantly as we get closer to the November 30 and February 28 deadlines for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, respectively. Russell Branzell, CEO and President of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), was, however, less enthused about the turnout thus far and expressed concerns about the future viability of the initiative barring any major help from CMS.

"[The new data] have validated the concerns of providers and IT leaders," Branzell said in an official statement. "Providers have struggled mightily in 2014, in many instances for reasons beyond their control. If nothing is done to help them get back on track for 2015, we will continue to see growing dissatisfaction with EHRs and disenchantment with meaningful use."

Investing in the best chiropractic EHR software now can ensure that your practice's recordkeeping needs are brought up-to-date with Meaningful Use standards in time for the appropriate deadline.

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With 2014 quickly coming to a close, the healthcare industry is renewing its emphasis on pushing providers to adopt Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 reporting standards. This was the subject of last week's College of Healthcare Information Management Executives' (CHIME) 2014 Fall CIO Forum, where stakeholders convened to discuss how to prioritize MU Stage 2 alongside other key issues like ICD-10 and cyber protection for medical records.

Chief among the issues discussed was the impending Medicare and Medicaid deadline. In accordance with the 2009 stimulus bill, providers who integrate MU Stage 2 reporting into their recordkeeping may be eligible for reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid. Conversely, not abiding by these requirements can result in penalties for clinics and hospitals as soon as early 2015, which is increasingly becoming a pressing concern for the relatively few amount of professionals who are eligible for — but currently failing to attest to — Stage 2 guidelines.

At the forum, CHIME's vice president of public policy, Jeff Smith, asserted that the college is collaborating with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) "to try and figure out a way to make these numbers better." Industry news source iHealthBeat adds that one proposed suggestion calls for cutting down the MU reporting period from the whole of 2015 to a simple 90-day window.

While groups like CHIME doubling down on efforts to ease the transition into Meaningful Use and other similarly important industrywide updates, providers and physicians can do their own part by incorporating new chiropractic EHR software into their practice's administrative duties. The best chiropractic EHR software package can streamline recordkeeping and even reduce related costs of patient care, all without disrupting typical workflow.

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While the road to ICD-10 these past few months may have overshadowed the ongoing effort among providers and payers to get in line with Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements, the latter initiative is just as essential as the former in modernizing the landscape of the American healthcare industry. Adhering to Stage 2 reporting criterion ensures that clinics, hospitals and physicians' offices across the country have up-to-date chiropractic EHR packages that can streamline administrative recordkeeping, collect more accurate diagnosis data and and share information between providers.

However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently come under fire for pushing the Physician Quality Reporting System and Value-Based Payment Modifier alongside Meaningful Use — three initiatives that should work in tandem to streamline reimbursement claims and dispense incentives, but are problematically incompatible with one another as is. These issues only add further confusion for providers already struggling to update their chiropractic EHR software to Meaningful Use Stage 2 standards — a problem that the American Medical Association (AMA) is urging CMS to fix as soon as possible.

"[These] problems, with often incomprehensible, conflicting requirements and flawed implementation processes, are all entering their penalty phases and pose a risk to the stability of the Medicare program that many policymakers do not seem to appreciate," writes James Madara, CEO and Executive Vice President of the AMA, in a letter penned to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. According to Madara, because the three initiatives were devised by separate pieces of legislation, they've created a "cumulative effect of a set of penalties that, when combined with a 2 percent payment sequester reduction, would total the 11 percent in 2017 and grow to 13 percent by the end of the decade."

Madara adds that this perfect storm of penalties could also pose a threat to providers' efforts in switching to ICD-10 within the next year.

To get out ahead of potential compatibility issues when it matters the most, it's essential to invest in the best chiropractic EHR software now rather than further down the road.

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On Friday, August 29, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued their final rule on Meaningful Use (MU) reporting, announcing that providers will have until next year to comply with Stage 2 requirements.

Just as they had delayed ICD-10 earlier this year because of general unreadiness among the industry, CMS began considering a similar extension for MU Stage 2 after a proposal in May determined that only four hospitals in the United States had achieved Stage 2 compliance. The difficulty many providers and vendors had with upgrading their chiropractic EHR and other EHR software prompted CMS to push the Stage 2 deadline back to next year. Now, practices and clinics will be able to use a combination of 2011 and 2014 certified EHR systems for their MU reporting needs. Stage 2 stipulates that providers strictly use 2014 certified EHR technology, a condition that will now go only into effect in 2015.

Industry news source iHealthBeat reports that this delay should offer providers more flexibility on e-prescriptions, public health data reports, patient drug allergy checks and clinical summaries for patients who request them.

But while CMS acquiesced to the deadline request after pressure from providers and vendors, many of these same groups now criticize the federal agency for making a decision that amounts to too little, too late. While the ICD-10 delay was for a full 365 days, the MU Stage 2 extension only accounts for the rest of 2014, which at this point stands at under four months. Providers will still need to adhere to Stage 2 standards as early as January 1, 2015, offering very little time between then and now to upgrade their chiropractic EHR software.

Clinics are encouraged to invest in the best chiropractic EHR software today so that they'll be ready for Stage 2 compliance by the time 2015 rolls around.

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As the year winds down into the last third of 2014, more clinics and practices around the country are likely feeling the pressure of not only upgrading their chiropractic EHR software to meet ICD-10 requirements, but also complying with Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2. This initiative ensures that healthcare providers are fully up-to-date on their digital recordkeeping needs, which not only means streamlined administrative duties and more readily accessible medical records, but also helps drastically improve patient care and reduce associated costs.

While many clinics and hospitals may continue to put off MU Stage 2 reporting — whether out of ambivalence, skepticism toward the program or simply being too busy with their own needs plus the similarly approaching ICD-10 deadline — the fact is, investing into MU compliance now will guarantee improved results for practitioners and patients alike in the long run. That's the message that Tamra Deming, Clinical Informatics Specialist for New Hampshire's Cottage Hospital, had to keep getting across in order to update her hospital's EHR needs.

"Whenever I have tried to teach anything to a provider and get it to stick, I always have to bring it back to their patients and the benefit they're providing for them," Deming tells EHR Intelligence. "If I am there in front of them, I'll remind them they're doing medical reconciliation because it's the safest step for your patient to make sure they're on everything they should rather than say you need to do med-rec's because meaningful use tells us to."

Purchase the right chiropractic documentation software now to help ensure better recordkeeping and patient care for the future.

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As part of electronic health records adoption and achieving Meaningful Use Stage 2, many medical centers have deployed online patient portals. These provide access to patient-doctor communications, appointment scheduling and other useful tools. However, nearly half of patients are unaware they exist.

According to a recent study performed by TechnologyAdvice, 40 percent of patients don't know if their primary care physician has an online portal, while only 49 percent said they were shown the portal by their doctor. The phone still came out on top of the list of preferred methods to contact a doctor or schedule an appointment, and 42.7 percent said they'd rather receive test results this way than by email. However, health care offices need to have at least five percent of their patients use an online portal in order to quality for Meaningful Use Stage 2 incentives.

Another issue was that only 6.3 percent of doctors use email for follow-ups after appointments, and 9.1 percent use other online resources, while 47.9 percent aren't performing follow-up communications at all.

The study did outline a demographic breakdown, with more than 60 percent of patients aged 18 to 24 saying they prefer using an online calendar for appointment scheduling, compared to less than 20 percent preferring phone. This rate shows a rapid fallout, with phone and online portal equal in preference among the 25 to 34 age range, then beginning to slide in favor of phone scheduling as patients grew older.

While there continue to be struggles achieving Stage 2 adoption, many firms are investing in enhanced solutions, especially in the chiropractic field. The best chiropractic EHR software can help offices achieve Meaningful Use and ease the transition to digital record keeping for the office and its patients.

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While we may tend to think of chiropractic EHR adoption and Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 reporting as one in the same — after all, both benchmarks require a measure of upgrading a practice's EHR needs — they really are two very different goals.

The former, which was tracked as part of MU Stage 1, merely requires physicians, clinics and hospitals make the jump from paper-based records to EHRs. While this is a pretty significant transition to make, it's also easy for the average provider to visualize and wrap their head around. There is a pretty clear and notable distinction between the look, function and value of paper medical records and electronic medical records.

But the move to Stage 2 is not as clear-cut, and as EHR Intelligence notes, that difference may actually be working against overall chiropractic EMR adoption rates. 

"Could Stage 2 slow EHR adoption? Absolutely. As part of a team supporting education for Stage 2 MU in our hospitals, I share the day-to-day frustrations with physicians as they are practically mandated to use technology that, at it's very best, takes time to log on, find the patient, search for an order, read through the patient's diagnostics with yet another system and then the application either freeze[s] or [loses] a server," one registered nurse and healthcare informaticist tells the source. "[...] The companies guiding these changes to meet government requirements are learning while implementing."

While there are undoubtedly growing pains associated with Stage 2 adoption, that's exactly what they are: growing pains. Further experience and education on topics like Meaningful Use, along with the best chiropractic EHR software to help more easily facilitate this transition, can help a clinic effectively implement and adopt these newer systems to both their advantage and their patient's.

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