3 useful changes to Meaningful Use

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed changes to the Meaningful Use program that are intended to relieve physician reporting burdens. Those changes include reducing the 2016 reporting period to 90 days. Based on feedback from the health care community, the proposed changes “better support physicians in providing beneficiaries with the right care at the right time,” CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt said in a press release. These changes were detailed in the 2017 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) proposed rule released last week. What changed? The AMA continues to drive home the message that the current problems of the Meaningful Use program must not be carried forward—and the changes recently proposed in the OPPS to Meaningful Use are a good start. Physicians around the country are expecting similar thoughtfulness from CMS about reducing burdens under Medicare’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) when the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) final rule is released in the fall. Here are three key changes to Meaningful Use in the proposed rule: 90-day reporting period in 2016. The OPPS proposed rule would allow physicians, hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAH) to use any 90-day, continuous reporting period between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2016, rather than the full calendar year reporting period currently required under Meaningful Use. CMS has also proposed a 90-day electro...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news