Over Half Of Physicians Do Not Plan Stage 2 MU Attestation In 2015
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Could the resistance from the medical community doom Meaningful Use in 2015?
A recent poll of nearly 2,000 physicians by Medical Practice Insider and SERMO has found that 55 percent of them have no plans to attest for stage 2 Meaningful Use (MU) in 2015. The survey actually showed a margin of 994 to 822 “no” among physicians who completed it.
As Health IT Outcome reported, Stage 2 attestation numbers remain low. According to the data released by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) during the Health IT Policy Committee meeting in early December, less than 35 percent of the nation's hospitals have met Stage 2 requirements. And while eligible professionals (EPs) have until the end of February to report their progress, only 4 percent have met Stage 2 requirements thus far.
As of November 1, only 43,898 eligible professionals and 1,903 eligible hospitals had attested to Meaningful Use for the 2014 reporting period, out of 500,000 active registrants, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Of those, only 1,478 eligible professionals and 840 eligible hospitals had attested for Stage 2.
The American Medical Association (AMA) and College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) have both urged changes in the attestation process, including the elimination of penalties and a shortened reporting period, to help encourage the Meaningful Use process and ease the burdens on healthcare providers.
“The low number of EP attestations to date is clear evidence that physician practices and their vendor partners have faced significant challenges in meeting the more onerous Stage 2 requirements of meaningful use,” Anders M. Gilberg, Senior Vice President, government affairs, MGMA, told HIT Consultant. “Shortening the reporting period in 2015 is a much needed change if the program is to remain viable and is a critical step if the nation is to continue making progress toward the goal of interoperability.”
The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, reported that approximately 75 percent of office-based primary care physicians had some form of EHR system in 2012. Financial incentives and stiff penalties for noncompliance have been the chief impetus for adoption, according to Medical Practice Insider.
The CMS has paid out nearly $10 billion in incentive payments to Eligible Professionals (Eps) under the meaningful use program to date. However, of those receiving incentive payments, only 3,655 unique Medicare EPs were for Stage 2 attestation as of early December, compared to 268,686 EPs for Stage 1.
The SERMO survey revealed reluctance among specialists to move to Stage 2 attestation for a variety of reasons, including financial burdens, resistance by older patients to engage with EHRs, physician dissatisfaction with the software and usability, and administrative costs, as well as the preference for paper records. Some respondents said attestation just doesn't make sense for their practice or for their patients, while others complained that the patient-engagement requirements are too cumbersome, especially for older patients.
The survey also revealed that family practitioners were also showing resistance to moving on to Stage 2. One physician wrote, “The following sentence is false 100 percent of the time: ‘We completed meaningful use stages 1 and 2 and as a consequence the care we provide for our patients has improved.’”