Meaningful Use for Attestation for EPs: The Numbers
Jim Tate
HITECH Act EHR Certification and Meaningful Use Expert
EMRAdvocate.com
Finally. We are less than two weeks away from the first Medicare EPs being able to submit online attestation in support of their application for CMS EHR incentives. In early April, the first wave of EPs will have met the requirement for ninety consecutive days of the meaningful use of Complete Certified Technology. Registration began in early January for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs and some EPs will be ready to document their Meaningful Use objectives online. CMS recently has been demonstrating screen shots of the web forms that will be used, and I’m glad to see they are straight forward. The online attestation process should not present major hurdles. What could be difficult is finding the data that documents Meaningful Use.
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Let’s take one example: the Meaningful Use Core Measure to “Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx).”
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The measure is that “more than 40 percent of all permissible prescriptions written by the EP are transmitted electronically using Certified technology”. The reporting EP has the option to limit this measure to only those patients whose records are maintained in the certified EHR. The denominator is the “number of prescriptions written for drugs requiring a prescription in order to be dispensed other than controlled substances during the EHR reporting period.” The numerator is the “number of prescriptions in the denominator generated and transmitted electronically.”
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So where will these numbers come from for a specific EP during a specific reporting? The answer is, “It all depends”. Some ONC Certified Complete EHRs have robust MU dashboards that reflect a mature ability to track each and every prescription produced by an EP. Other ONC Certified Complete EHRs have MU dashboards that are totally manual and are incapable of tracking the underlying data. These systems do not generate a numerator or denominator but simple have input fields and it is up to the EP to somehow keep track of their total number of prescriptions (paper, electronic, called in) as well as how many were electronic. Depending on the specific Certified EHR and a practice’s workflow, gathering this data could be very simple or an absolute nightmare which could threaten the ability to receive the incentives.
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Start looking now at your EHR and your workflow to address the issue of where your Meaningful Use numbers will be coming from.
.
Let’s take one example: the Meaningful Use Core Measure to “Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx).”
.
The measure is that “more than 40 percent of all permissible prescriptions written by the EP are transmitted electronically using Certified technology”. The reporting EP has the option to limit this measure to only those patients whose records are maintained in the certified EHR. The denominator is the “number of prescriptions written for drugs requiring a prescription in order to be dispensed other than controlled substances during the EHR reporting period.” The numerator is the “number of prescriptions in the denominator generated and transmitted electronically.”
.
So where will these numbers come from for a specific EP during a specific reporting? The answer is, “It all depends”. Some ONC Certified Complete EHRs have robust MU dashboards that reflect a mature ability to track each and every prescription produced by an EP. Other ONC Certified Complete EHRs have MU dashboards that are totally manual and are incapable of tracking the underlying data. These systems do not generate a numerator or denominator but simple have input fields and it is up to the EP to somehow keep track of their total number of prescriptions (paper, electronic, called in) as well as how many were electronic. Depending on the specific Certified EHR and a practice’s workflow, gathering this data could be very simple or an absolute nightmare which could threaten the ability to receive the incentives.
.
Start looking now at your EHR and your workflow to address the issue of where your Meaningful Use numbers will be coming from.