Home Forums Discussions Meaningful Use Core 13: Clinical Summary

What are folks doing for this and when? Most of my notes (Dragon) are done after the patient has left. Also, what is to be included? - Thank you.

after you finish your note , check patient instruction and click print summary. This will generate a letter to the patient. Print to pdf file on your desktop. This will count your ccd. at the end of the day delete all your pdf files.

Why not actually print the plan/letter for the patient and give it to them???

You don't even need to click print. Just click to preview, it will display the preview and it counts in the MU counter.


I find that the format & content of the summary is very confusing to most patients. The first several we gave patients, they left at the front desk.

Thank you for your inputs. My question was regarding what to include in the printout without confusing the patient with clinical terms and not hinder workflow.

After much thought and to keep everything kosher my plan is: Dictate a brief summary of the visit in a paragraph in the plan box. Print instructions. Mail the letter and summary in a window envelope.

I have done it a dozen times and actually like it. I hope it will reduce some phone calls. Of course, my patient volume is not that high. I can understand that in a primary care setting these minutes can add up.

I found this in searching for ways to make Core 13 "meaningful"
According to this person, the new requirement is just to "offer" a clinical summary. Does anyone know anything about this?

Details below -- I don't know where to even begin to check out the veracity of this.

If it is true that all we have to do is "offer", and if the "meaningful use" counter is activated merely by clicking on "preview", then it would seem the problem is solved. I agree that the current format is unworkable, unreadable, unhelpful to patients, as well as time and paper consuming.

Tom Duncan

*****Clinical Summaries and Meaningful Use: The Real Story
http://www.valant.com/blog/valant-news/clinical-summaries-and-meaningful-use-the-real-story/

Posted by David on 22 September 2011 | 2 Comments

It looked as if Core Measure 13, Clinical Summaries, was going to be the hardest objective to meet in meaningful use. And what's more, patients would in many cases not benefit from, or want to receive, the summary. Well, we have good news! Our contacts at CMS have clarified for us that as long as an offer is made to provide the clinical summary, the measure is satisfied, whether or not the patient declines to receive it. So it's way easier than we thought it would be. This is just another reason to jump in and achieve meaningful use in 2011.

Tags: meaningful use, incentives
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Of course. Our contact?s name is Robert Anthony and he is a Health Insurance Specialist in the Office of E-Health Standards and Services at CMS. We asked him the question: ?Would offering the patient the clinical summary after every visit count as providing a clinical summary for this measure?? Robert?s response was: ?Yes, as long as the offer is made to each patient. However, just posting a sign saying that a summary is available would not be sufficient to meet the measure?

Hope this helps! ****

Another Meaningful use question - this time regarding E-prescribing.

Suppose we are "remiss" and do not actually prescribe a patient any medication during a visit (simply because they don't need any renewals or new prescriptions.). As far as I can tell, it appears that we are then MU penalized for not having e-prescribed during that visit.

Anyone have comments, thoughts or work-arounds (other than the MU-un intended result that every patient always be prescribed at least something -whether they need it or not)

Thanks,

Bruce Morgenstern, Neurology
Denver CO

You are not penalized for erx - it counts how many scrips done and how many were erx. You have to be conscientious and double click active meds to enter meds that pt is on or were given by other doctors before your appt - if you use prescription writer to enter them they will count as scrips.

If the patient doesn't want it, just print it to PDF and save paper. Printing to PDF will count in your numerator.

This is a very interesting thread. I may just do MU as I downloaded V6 yesterday and it does not look that complicated. I already to smoking but have it in the social history right below. As I commented elsewhere, the race question bothers me a lot and patients in libertarian heavy Alaska would take offense. I'm not going to hurt my business over it. I have already been printing visit summaries, as they are very helpful for a patient, but the CCD that prints out is a joke! It is very confusing and is not formatted correctly. I hope you are listening AC! If the requirement is to offer, ALL WE NEED IS A CHECKBOX that says OFFERED SUMMARY. I hate to waste 3 sheet of paper every visit as you don't get credit if the CCD box isn't checked. I also don't want to switch printers just for this. This is something that AC CAN FIX. Here's another question. I printed the summary and a worthless CCD on my last patient, but when running the checker I did not get credit for it at all. Are some saying you don't get credit until midnight?