Home Forums Discussions Meaningful Use Wait till next year and still get all the $$$?

The EHR Incentive Program: Consider Waiting for Next Year
Family Practice Management
David C. Kibbe, MD
Published ahead of print on July 7, 2011.


?If you begin with 90 days of meaningful use next year, you can still qualify for the full incentive amount.

Dr. Kibbe is a senior adviser to the AAFP's Center for Health IT (CHIT), in Leawood, Kan., chair of the ASTM International E31 Technical Committee on Healthcare Informatics, and principal of The Kibbe Group, LLC. Author disclosure: no relevant financial affiliations disclosed.

Dr. Kibbe & I agree, but I thought of it first

Dr. Kibbe didn't say how we can get the full amount if we wait till next year. Does anyone understand this.

CMS has a chart here.

John, you were definitely out front on this one. While it certainly would be reasonable to take that approach, I am still not sure if I agree. On the other hand, I don't like Kibbe's main arguments. Here they are:
"1.Next year at this time, some of those newer EHRs may have proven themselves to be reliable, affordable designed to meet meaningful use criteria, perhaps with platforms in the cloud; some will even run on the iPad.
2. Next year at this time, the legacy vendors? prices for upgrades will probably have decreased as their demand tapers off in the face of the new competition for price, features and ease of use.
3. If you begin with 90 days of meaningful use next year, you can still qualify for the full incentive amount.
4. And by next year, if the stars align, the ONC and CMS will have taken to heart the recommendations from many, including the AAFP, to simplify, streamline and stretch out the timeline for the processes involved with applying for, attaining and getting paid for the ?meaningful use of certified EHR technology.?

I don't think 1 and 2 apply to AC users. 4 is unlikely. (Balanced by the equally unlikely scenario, in my opinion, that the whole incentive program would be cancelled, and that would be an argument to act now).
#3 is true, but I see no significant reason to wait.

He doesn't mention the advantage of waiting that we have discussed here, namely that you can take the 1% eRx incentive this year if you wait to get the EHR incentive in 2012. If you take EHR money in 2011, you forfeit that.

Advantages of applying for 2011: you only have to attest, without sending reports in 2011, and you only have to use it for 90 days. That is not true for 2012. And of course, you get the money a year earlier.

I understand the case for not participating and take MU incentives at all, but I think if I am going to do it, I will do it this year.

If one were to do it this year and only have to attest, but not produce data, can one then bow out and not do it the following year when it is time to produce data??? And once connected to a REC can one ever really turn it off???

My wife and I are very adiment about upset about all of this reporting of patient and doctor data.... No less the entire lifetime, centralized medical history chart thing... Like that is way too much private info with way too many players having way too much access to it. No less allowing our Gov't to have access to that kind of info....

And if none of you have thought about this already, Don't think that for a moment that kind of data will not be farmed and mined some day in the very near future to start finding "Outliers" in coding and charting and billing... They are Spying on ALL of You, and those who are going along with this way to aggressively being lead around my your noses by the Dollar Signs waived in your face, I'm sorry to say but you are ALL going to have a very RUDE awakening sometime very soon....

One day all doctors are going to be Audited with regularity via a direct connection ala the Matrix right into your own offices that you Signed Up for and Agreed to because you couldn't gain enough clarity from this BullCCHIT to see the impending "Storm" (Cue Jim Cantori please) coming right at you and that you were signing yours and your patients lives and privacy away all for a couple of extra bucks that most of us will not even remember in a few years from now as we struggle against this impending disaster of over stepping their boundaries and authority.... Violating the confidenciality of the Exam Room and the doctor patient relationship....

I'm half tempted as we are seriously upside down and broke after many business problems and personal health issues that brought most of that on.... but not at the significant risk of allowing the gov't, CMS, and private carriers to run their dirty little fingers thru each and every note and invoice, 1500 my wife will ever submit from this day forward...

Not to mention not being able to look myself in the eye in the morning when I try to brush my teeth and shave every day.... This is still America last time I checked, and as much as the Supreme Court is attempting to send us back to the days of Dreed Scott ruling that Corporations are "People" (And Mitt I mean CCHIT Agrees too!!!) and that unequal amounts of money equals free speech so only the rich can play in the field of politics now... Post Citizens' United... This is seriously bad CCHIT folks invading the privacy of each and every American for the rest of time... And we are about to literally had these bastards over our keys and our security codes and passes, and all for a couple of very dirty, Blood on Our Hands, Bucks....

One day like the old Days of Child and Sweatshop labor, collaborating with Nazi's and other true enemies of the people and of the state (even if the present Enemy seems to be the offical State) History will not look kindly upon those of us who sat back and did NOTHING, no less those who were blinded by the waving of a few extra Incentive Dollars to actually actively collaborate with the insider enemy...

What will any of us tell our Children and our Grandchilden when they ask us why Nobody in America has a right to personal and medical privacy anymore??? Oh Grandma or Grandpa was too nieve, silly and blinded by a few dollars waved in their face to take a stand against their own Medical Associations, Medical Societies, Boards and the Gov't to do anything about when it was all going down??? How many of you who were NOT part of the original Managed Care "Revolution" that has ruined and posioned this once wonderful, well respected and decent industry feel that time and history shines positively on those docs who were too blind to see that they were allowing the camel into their tent and the wolves into their Chicken Coops???? Honestly now....

Either we wake-up and demand that our leaders in this industry listen and learn from history or we are gosh darn sure to be repeating it over these next few years bowing down to false gods of Disease Based Patient Management with their data collection and "Metrics"... And all of this Meaningless Use, CCHIT takes away the last few bastions of human decency and privacy left in the Nation....

Did any of you think that 4o years ago when credit cards were first really gain a foothold that One Day your potential "Employer" would be able to easily and Legally access your Credit Report and then be allowed to use the information gained in those reports as a means to say yes or no about granted you a job with that company??? Did any of you know that George and Dick after 9-11 gutted and totally flipped HIPAA on its ears to the point where it basically is no longer about patient privacy and most of the original protections provided by are Gone???

Don't tell me this CCHIT stops here because it never does.... it always continues to slip down a slippy slope once the moarings are released if and until enough people reach a critial mass of of outrage over something like these upcoming violations.... They never stop, really they never ever stop... once the wolf is at your door and you do not strike back immediately, once the camel has his nose in your tent, once a certain barrier has been breached, things will continue to spiral ever downward against civil and human rights in cases like this... This is what powerful and shameless people do, they always do, this is way they do....

Paul

Yes and yes.

So is anyone out there going to wait?

With the news of having to enter cpt codes, it is sounds inviting.

Start entering CPT codes now and turn in December - you just have to bite the bullet. I have always coded ICD9 and CPT - once I got used to finding ICD 9 codes it was easy - did take a while, but now I know a lot of ICD 9 codes, 272.4, 401.9, 496.....

And just as you get that system down, they'll change it to ICD-10. mu hahahaha

Wayne, you're a crack up!!
Steven, thanks for your encouragement. In a post elsewhere I explained that the problem isn't coding. The problem for us right now is the way AC 6.09 is moving so slowly on my server. It can take over a minute to open the imported items section.
Sending an erx can take several minutes as well. The screens sometimes freeze up and go all white-all the while I'm wondering if I am about to lose my data/note.

We have about a week to decide if we are going to bite the bullet or just risk waiting till next year. Because we are still trying to make changes to our server to accomodate AC, we may be forced to wait till next year.