 What
is the HITECH Act?
Why
did the government pass this law? Why is it
important?
What
does the HITECH Act mean to physicians and
hospitals?
What incentives are available to me?
What
happens if I don’t adopt an EMR system?
Where
do I begin? How do I start thinking about
this process to
ensure that I have thought everything through?
What is the HITECH Act?
On February 17, 2009 a $787 Billion, the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009 aka “the Stimulus Bill,” was signed
into law by the federal government. Included
in this law is $19.2 Billion which is
intended to be used to increase the use of
Electronic Health Records (EHR) by
physicians and hospitals; this portion of
the bill is called, the Health Information
Technology for Economic and Clinical Health
Act, or HITECH Act. The government firmly
believes in the benefits of using electronic
health records and is ready to invest
federal resources to proliferate its use.
Title XIII in Division A, pages 112 through
165 and
Title IV in Division B, pages 353
through 398, cover the HITECH portion of
this economic recovery act.
Why did the government pass this law? Why is
it important?
There has been extensive research done to
show that utilizing an EHR would serve to
improve patient care, increase patient
safety and simplify compliance in the US
healthcare system. Additionally, it would
help cut costs in the long term, as it would
minimize errors, increase productivity and
administrative efficiency.
For additional information on the potential
benefits and savings associated with
investing in an EMR system, the following
link provides a good reference:
HealthAffairs.org.
To further understand the benefits of
investing in an oncology specific EMR system
that go far beyond government incentives,
please click
MOSAIQ ROI.
What does the HITECH Act mean to physicians
and hospitals? What incentives are available
to me?
As described in the most recent published
news, the intended use of the $19 Billion
will be for incentive payments, grants and
loans.
$17 Billion will be used for incentive
payments to physicians and hospitals that
participate in Medicare and Medicaid
programs. These incentives will be issued to
current users and new adopters of certified
EMR systems, who use the system in a
meaningful way. The certification process
and standardization criteria have NOT yet
been determined, and will be decided upon by
the end of 2009. The government has NOT yet
made any reference to partnerships with any
existing EMR certification organizations.
Medicare- Physicians seeing Medicare
patients can receive up to $44K over the
course of 5 years. An additional 10% is
available to physicians operating in a
designated Health Professional Shortage Area
(HPSA), for more information go to
www.hpsafind.hrsa.gov. The general
depiction of the payout schedule is in the
following table.
How to read this table: The first row
represents the year you adopt an EMR system.
The first column represents how much the
payout will be each year. For example, if
you are a current user, your payout for 2012
will be $12K. If you adopt an EMR system in
2013, your payout will be $15K in 2013, $12k
in 2014, and $8K in 2015.
|
Payout |
Current |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
|
2011 |
$18K |
$18K |
― |
― |
― |
|
2012 |
$12K |
$12K |
$18K |
― |
― |
|
2013 |
$8K |
$8K |
$12K |
$15K |
― |
|
2014 |
$4K |
$4K |
$8K |
$12K |
$15K |
|
2015 |
$2K |
$2K |
$4K |
$8K |
$12K |
|
2016 |
― |
― |
$2K |
$4K |
$8K |
|
Total |
$44K |
$44K |
$44K |
$39K |
$35K |
Medicaid - Physicians whose caseloads
include at least 30% Medicaid patients are
eligible to receive up to $64K over the
course of 5 years, the exact payments have
not yet been determined. Physicians cannot
obtain incentives from both Medicaid and
Medicare, but hospitals can.
Hospitals - Hospitals can receive a base
payment of up to $2M initially. Additional
incentives are available according to a
formula based on discharges, year of
adoption etc., with a cap at $6M. The exact
payment schedule is not yet determined.
The remaining $2 Billion will be dispersed
as grants and loans to promote advancements
in healthcare information technology (HIT)
and improve accessibility to HIT in
underprivileged areas. The grants will be
available to researchers, Community Health
Centers, Rural Health Centers and Indian
Health Centers.
What happens if I don’t adopt an EMR
system?
After 2015, further financial incentives
will not be available and penalties will
kick in. There will be a 1% reduction in
Medicare fees per year, up to 3% by 2017.
Where do I begin? How do I start thinking
about this process to ensure that I have
thought everything through?
It is obvious from the explanation of the
incentive plan that the sooner you adopt an
EMR system, the more incentive funds that
will be available to you. It is not an easy
undertaking and will require quite a bit of
analysis, preparation and research to begin
the process.
Our
STRATEGIQ
professional services team is available to
assist you during this process.
Additionally, we have made every effort to
make the transition to an electronic
charting environment a seamless process for
our customers and are offering special
incentives to encourage the adoption of the
MOSAIQ EMR system.
For more information about our suite of
products,
contact your local sales
representative.
|
 |
"Elekta provides a state of the art oncology
information system that helps customers maximize
their return on investment on cancer care and
delivery technologies. STRATEGIQ, Elekta's
professional services team, can guide prospective
customers and current users toward optimizing their
use of Elekta solutions and by helping clinicians
and managers navigate and take advantage of
government-driven mandates and incentives available
for the adoption of electronic health records
solutions. Participation in the Oncology Data
Alliance (ODA) and/or the Radiation Oncology Data
Alliance (RODA) will provide the center access to
benchmarking data and help to develop strategies to
improve data quality and patient care."
James P. Hoey,
President and Chief Executive Officer,
North America |
|
Healthcare industry leaders encourage you to not
wait until January 2011 to adopt an EMR system- the
sooner the adoption the more time you will have
efficiently use the EMR and realize the maximum
benefits. We offer a robust array of EMR solutions
to meet the immediate and long term needs of
oncology health care providers. Take a look at our
medical oncology software, MOSAIQ, click
here for a product demonstration.
|
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Sales
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