Home Forums Discussions Meaningful Use How is MU going?

Leslie I have argued with you about this on several occasions, and I publicly must confess I feel you are 100% on target. We will be Drafted in the national health service if it suits the federal government, or our president (who ever he or she may be at the time, as our dysfunctional congress has created an environement where no one is upset that the president must act by executive order or by appointments when congress is in recess, completely eliminating the troublesome checks and balances).

Initially we can all drop out of Medicare, with our patients paying us a few dollars cash for office visits, and Medicare will happily take the savings to underwrite the enormous overhead of the HHS juggernaut. Even if it gets down to one Doctor still a provider for only one patient, I would not be expecting any cut back in the size or staff of the medicare system. They will only howl when the public complains they can't find a doctor. And the solution will not be a pay raise or a cash incentive, it will be a draft card!

Thank you Martin. Let's hope we are both wrong. May be time to reupholster cars and custom bale hay.

How could they draft us if we didn't comply with eRx, MU and PQRS? Would that mean we could serve as physicians as long as we work for peanuts? Interesting...

Not us John. It will soon become a job Americans won't do.

I hope the US Constitution protects us from some of the fear of socialized medicine. We are not yet a communist country, but the way the Federal Government is controlling medicine seems reminiscent of communism.

From what I heard recently, the Supreme Court will hear a case against the Health Care Reform Act later this year. We'll see how it goes....

Once we qualify and eventually receive our MU payment, what is the next stage for the following year's payment?

You would need to continue same measures for the period of 1 year instead of 3 months.
I am not sure if this makes sense at this point...

For the second year, we have to report for the entire calendar year. If you are qualifying under Medicare MU, then you get $12,000 for year two. Phase II of MU implementation was supposed to begin in 2012, but it has been delayed to 2013 at the earliest. What is Phase II?....well we are not really sure. It's not been publicized by CMS, but there is a phase II and phase III.

My regional extension center director told me
"Per CMS:
The criteria for meaningful use will be staged in three steps over the course of the next five years.
? Stage 1 (2011 and 2012) sets the baseline for electronic data capture and information sharing.
? Stage 2 (expected to be implemented in 2013) and Stage 3 (expected to be implemented in 2015) will continue to expand on this baseline and be developed through future rule making."

Guidance that she received at a recent workshop to best prepare practices for Meaningful Use Stages 2 & 3: Encourage practices to hit the measures 100% of the time.

This is the foreseeable future of MU.