Why EMRs/EHRs in the first place?
It has always been an open secret that despite The United States being the largest spender on public health in the world, the life expectancy of its citizens (ranked 50th in 2011) did not justify the expenditure. Thus measures had been taken by Congress to rectify the situation, both to meet the ends of improved healthcare and at the same time lowering costs. A means towards this end was the promulgation of EMR adoption as a significant step in the reduction of overall costs and improved healthcare. EMR’s did away with the drawbacks of paper files and allowed health practitioners and administrators to more efficiently organize patient information and also enabled ready access of the same from anywhere, anyplace.
Although EMRs had always been used for more than 3 decades, its adoption had not been widespread here. Indeed, with a dismal adoption rate of 28% in 2011, the United States ranked far behind some of the other developed countries (like the Netherlands for example which had almost 100% adoption) in this arena.
Federal Stimulus and Meaningful Use Criteria
Thus the federal authorities wanted to increase the uptake rate of EMRs and incentivized its adoption in the form of allocating a fund or more than $35 billion dollars in 2009 to pay out incentives (called the stimulus) if health practitioners adopted EMRs by a certain time line. The money involved on an individual level was high, upto $66,000 per physician. But at the same time they had wanted to avoid the pitfalls of wrongful implementation, where costs actually increased than decreased. An example of this was the widespread adoption and then deinstallation of EMRs in the state of Arizona from 2005 to 2010 following Governor’s Napolitano’s mandate in 2005, which had preceded even some of the federal rulings. Thus the meaningful use criteria, which clearly delineated the steps involved in EMR adoption, so as to ensure the desired outcomes, came into force. In the course of time certifying bodies for EHRs emerged, which automatically authenticated the meaningful use property of an EHR once certified by them.
Billing Paradise: An Enabler of the EMR Revolution
Billing Paradise has been witness to the origins of the EMR revolution and has lent installation and post-implementation support to buyers of more than 50 EMR products. Our singular experience and expertise in EMRs thus also makes us the ideal ally for you when it comes to collecting your EHR stimulus bonus.
With regards to the same Billing Paradise provides answers to the following:
a. What are the qualification criteria for this bonus.
b. The structure and the scheme of the bonus.
c. Timelines involved in the collection of the bonus.
d. What constitutes meaningful use and how to register as a meaningful EHR user.
e. The importance of EHR certification in the context of meaningful use.
Billing Paradise can be reached at 1-(888)-571-9069 or steve@billingparadise.com.
