I agree and hope so too. In fairness to AC, they worked hard to get a MU interface put together and approved by CMS at the end of 2010 and in a timely manner so we could take advantage of MU in 2011. I am $18,000 grateful for it! Is it imperfect? yes. Can it be improved? I sure hope so.
However, I truly wish however AC would sideline the push to get PM functionality in favor of making an easier and more reliable MU interface. This will be critical to attest in Stages 2 and 3. Maybe someday if we put this in the wish list...
In the short term however, as long as I attest successfully in 2011 (stage 1) and 2012 (stage 1), I'll get 18K and 12K (30K total). If due to the MU interface challenges I don't successfully at stages 2 & 3, I will only miss out on 8K, 4K, and 2K (14K total) of incentives but no penalties. Starting in 2015 I will only get penalized between 2-5% of my Medicare allowable charges which for our average annual Medicare reimbursement of approx $125,000, this equals between $2,500-5,000 in penalties per year.
So either way they slice it, I come out ahead for several years despite the somewhat sloppy nature of the MU interface. Again thanks to AC this is a minimum 30K that I would not have had.
Also without AC, I would be spending thousands of more dollars per year in paper costs, staffing to handle all the paper flow and medical records, not to mention the countless hours of my time spent inefficiently handling paper messages. AC really gave my life back to me. Thanks AC!
