HITECH Act
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 created an exceptional milestone for healthcare providers to focus on increased care for patients. What better way than incorporating EHR?
Providing approximately $19.2 billion in funding to healthcare organizations, both large institutions or smaller physician practices, the ARRA has served as motivation to not only adopt these health care information technologies, but to demonstrate Meaningful Use over the next few years. (See Meaningful Use) The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act), however, is the "allocation" of these dollars and declares when and how the payouts take place.
The HITECH act of 2009, $27 billion was set aside by Congress as incentive payments in adoption of meaningful use of EHR by providers. “Meaningful Use” is the benchmarks/objectives that providers must meet in order to receive payments from the federal government under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program ($44 thousand) or the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program ($64 thousand.) Under the Obama Administation, the HITECH Act aimed to use the federal investments to stimulate the market of EHR with Incentives, Strict and Open Standards (to ensure a common goal,) and Certification of Software (to ensure basic quality, safety, and efficiency standards are met by the EHR. Providers not only must show that they are using EHR applications but also demonstrating Meaningful Use.
Amazingly, 80/81% of the nation’s hospitals planned to take advantage of the incentive programs within the first stage of the act. This is important because the maximum reimbursement occurs here. In fact, reductions in these reimbursements will be seen by 2015.
Interestingly, the government knows how such transition can be challenging and huge investments, particularly in smaller practices, so this is resolved by the HITECH act delivering both the incentive payments as stated earlier, in addition to guidance in the form of technical assistance. Collaborative leadership from the nation’s clinical and hospitals serve as an important element in the implementation of EHR meaningful use. Adopting an initial set of Health Information Technology (HIT) standards by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT created the incentive program for meaningful users.
The exchange of health information (HIE) allows healthcare organizations achieve Meaningful Use. Sharing the data and interoperability is key in this operation.
Providing approximately $19.2 billion in funding to healthcare organizations, both large institutions or smaller physician practices, the ARRA has served as motivation to not only adopt these health care information technologies, but to demonstrate Meaningful Use over the next few years. (See Meaningful Use) The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act), however, is the "allocation" of these dollars and declares when and how the payouts take place.
The HITECH act of 2009, $27 billion was set aside by Congress as incentive payments in adoption of meaningful use of EHR by providers. “Meaningful Use” is the benchmarks/objectives that providers must meet in order to receive payments from the federal government under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program ($44 thousand) or the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program ($64 thousand.) Under the Obama Administation, the HITECH Act aimed to use the federal investments to stimulate the market of EHR with Incentives, Strict and Open Standards (to ensure a common goal,) and Certification of Software (to ensure basic quality, safety, and efficiency standards are met by the EHR. Providers not only must show that they are using EHR applications but also demonstrating Meaningful Use.
Amazingly, 80/81% of the nation’s hospitals planned to take advantage of the incentive programs within the first stage of the act. This is important because the maximum reimbursement occurs here. In fact, reductions in these reimbursements will be seen by 2015.
Interestingly, the government knows how such transition can be challenging and huge investments, particularly in smaller practices, so this is resolved by the HITECH act delivering both the incentive payments as stated earlier, in addition to guidance in the form of technical assistance. Collaborative leadership from the nation’s clinical and hospitals serve as an important element in the implementation of EHR meaningful use. Adopting an initial set of Health Information Technology (HIT) standards by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT created the incentive program for meaningful users.
The exchange of health information (HIE) allows healthcare organizations achieve Meaningful Use. Sharing the data and interoperability is key in this operation.