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CMS Transitions Away from Meaningful Use As We Know It

by | Feb 1, 2016 | CMS-nir, Essential, Focus On-nir, National Lab Reporter

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt announced Jan. 11 at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco that the CMS Meaningful Use program that awards incentives for using certified electronic health records to improve patient care will be ending in 2016. “The Meaningful Use program as it has existed, will now be eectively over and replaced with something better,” said Slavitt. He indicated CMS would explain the next stage over the next few months. About a week later, on Jan. 19, Slavitt co-authored a CMS Blog entry with Karen DeSalvo, acting assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health & Human Services, discussing a “transition from the staged meaningful use phase to the new program as it will look under MACRA.” The blog backed away from the “end” of meaningful use, however, stating that MACRA “continues to require that physicians be measured on their meaningful use of certified EHR technology for purposes of determining their Medicare payments.” Slavitt Spotlights CMS 2016 Agenda In addition to causing a stir about Meaningful Use, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt highlighted CMS top agenda items for 2016. Besides the transition in store […]

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt announced Jan. 11 at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco that the CMS Meaningful Use program that awards incentives for using certified electronic health records to improve patient care will be ending in 2016. “The Meaningful Use program as it has existed, will now be eectively over and replaced with something better,” said Slavitt. He indicated CMS would explain the next stage over the next few months.

About a week later, on Jan. 19, Slavitt co-authored a CMS Blog entry with Karen DeSalvo, acting assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health & Human Services, discussing a “transition from the staged meaningful use phase to the new program as it will look under MACRA.” The blog backed away from the “end” of meaningful use, however, stating that MACRA “continues to require that physicians be measured on their meaningful use of certified EHR technology for purposes of determining their Medicare payments.”

Slavitt Spotlights CMS 2016 Agenda

In addition to causing a stir about Meaningful Use, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt highlighted CMS top agenda items for 2016. Besides the transition in store for meaningful use, Slavitt discussed the following agenda items:

  • ACOs. Noting the increase in participants in Accountable Care Organizations, he declared that “in 2016, we have not only more ACOs, but better ACOs.”
  • Medicaid. Modernization of Medicaid will continue, with CMS’ priority being “to attract new innovative companies to invest in the Medicaid IT space.”
  • Health Insurance Marketplaces. Indicating the marketplaces are moving from the “startup stage to a more mature stage,” Slavitt indicates an intention to make the marketplaces attractive to consumers, to “create a healthy, stable, and balanced risk pool” and make sure “risk adjustment works as it is intended to allow coverage of individuals with pre-existing conditions” and “proper incentives exist to insure sicker populations.”

MACRA, the Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, signed into law April 16, 2016, emphasizes the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and incentive payments for participation in certain Alternative Payment Models (APMs). As Slavitt explained in his remarks Jan. 11, MIPS measures physicians based on “four categories: quality, cost, the use of technology, and practice improvement.” Slavitt indicated that this move away from the meaningful use program “as it has existed” will be guided by four themes:

  • Greater focus on patient outcomes physicians achieve rather than their use of technology.
  • More user-centered focus that allows providers “to customize their goals so tech companies can build around the individual practice needs, not the needs of government.”
  • Leveling the technology playing field and enable “apps, analytic tools, and connected technologies to get data in and out of an EHR securely.”
  • Interoperability—Slavitt says “we are deadly serious about interoperability” and CMS wants to engage patients in their care and close referral loops. Data blocking “won’t be tolerated.”

Those themes are also discussed in the Jan. 19 blog. Both the Jan. 19 blog and Slavitt’s Jan. 11 comments promise further details will be forthcoming about implementation of MACRA and the transition from meaningful use. The Jan. 19 blog emphasized, however, that existing regulations, including stage 3 meaningful use regulations are still in eect. Some relief is provided, however, for those seeking hardship exceptions to meaningful use requirements. New application processes allow groups of providers to submit a single application for the exception rather than individual applications.

Takeaway: Meaningful use is transitioning to an outcomesfocused methodology for assessing health care delivery.

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