EHR Incentive Program FAQ
Join us each week for our FAQ Friday, a look at some of the questions we get on Meaningful Use and other HITECH topics.
QUESTION: On Menu Set Objectives: Providing Clinical Summaries for every patient and providing timely electronic access. Both objectives require no request from the patient. Can it be the same information that would qualify the EP for both menu set objectives?
ANSWER: First we have to clarify the Core Set has two references to “Providing Patients with access to their health information”.
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Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information (including diagnostic test results, problem list, medication lists, medication allergies) upon request. (50 percent of all patients who request an electronic copy)
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Provide clinical summaries for patients for each office visit. (50 percent of all patients visits)
The Menu Set has one reference to “Providing Patients with access to their health information”.
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Provide patients with timely electronic access to their health information (including lab results, problem list, medication lists, and allergies) within 4 business days of the information being available to the EP. (At least 10% of all unique patients)
The Core Set requirements pertain to the EP providing a patient with a copy of their health information in either a paper or electronic format (e.g. Flash Drive, CD/DVD or PDF).
The Menu Set requirement pertains to the providing the patient with a means to electronically access their health information. Online electronic access is defined as through either a patient portal or personal health record (PHR) will satisfy the measure of this objective.
The above mentioned items are three different requirements.
QUESTION: If a patient requests, and we supply, an electronic copy of their health information from our practice, and that patient has seen more than one provider how would we determine which EP gets ‘credit’ for that Meaningful Use objective?
ANSWER PER CMS: “If the request for an electronic copy of their health information is made by a patient to a specific EP, then the patient should be counted in the numerator and denominator for that specific EP. If the patient makes a request for an electronic copy of their health information that is not to a specific EP (e.g., by request to the practice’s administrative staff), then the patient should be counted in the numerators and denominators for all EPs with whom the patient has had an office visit during the EHR reporting period.”.