AMA Continues Call For Removal Of MU Penalties
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Federal IT changes are needed to improve care for patients and eliminate physician burdens.
The AMA has continued its call for a halt to penalties in the Meaningful Use program, approving a new policy at the recent Interim Meeting. According to a press release, the policy reflects the belief by physicians that “full interoperability, which is not widely available today, is necessary to achieve the goals of electronic health records (EHRs) to facilitate coordination, increase efficiency and help improve the quality of care.”
The new policy comes as reports of attestation rates are demonstrating inconsistent results and industry backlash against the program, as reported by Health IT Outcomes. According to newly released CMS figures, less than 17 percent of hospitals across the nation have achieved Stage 2 attestations, less than 38 percent of eligible hospitals (HEs) and critical access hospitals (CAHs) have met either stage of MU in 2014, and only 2 percent of eligible professionals (Eps) have demonstrated stage 2 capabilities to date.
Officials from the American Medical Association (AMA), College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) called the results disappointing, yet predictable, and have joined forces to call for legislation that would add more flexibility and shorten the reporting period for MU in order to reduce penalties for physicians.
“The AMA has been calling for policymakers to refocus the Meaningful Use program on interoperability for quite some time,” said AMA President-elect Steven J. Stack, M.D in the press release. “The whole point of the Meaningful Use incentive program was to allow for the secure exchange of information across settings and providers and right now that type of sharing and coordination is not happening on a wide scale for reasons outside physicians' control. Physicians want to improve the quality of care and usable, interoperable electronic health records are a pathway to achieving that goal.”
The new policy also urges policy makers to increase EHRs' usability; there has been criticism of the currently design of EHRs, arguing that they create unnecessary clerical work for physicians and distract them from their patients. As the legislation stands now, starting in 2015 physicians who do not meet Meaningful Use requirements and who do not qualify for a hardship exemption will have to pay a reimbursement penalty.
AMA has been aggressive in its efforts to reduce restrictions in the Meaningful Use program and to make EHRs more helpful to physicians. Among the actions they have taken are issuing an EHR usability framework and a blueprint to improve MU. The AMA also drafted a letter to CMS in October requesting the 2015 reporting period be shortened from 365 to 90 days.