What you Do Not Know about Healthcare IT and Meaningful Use Will Cost you Dearly - Part Two - January 11, 2010
Orlando Florida -- The massive new federal rule issued last week by the CMS has been getting most of the attention in the healthcare information technology community because it sets the meaningful-use criteria healthcare providers must meet to leverage billions of dollars in federal subsidies to purchase electronic health-record systems under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, known as the stimulus law.
Still, a smaller, companion rule also released on the same day by the Office of the National Coordinator at HHS packs a lot of IT wallop.
The stimulus law requires the national coordinator, in consultation with the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to “keep or recognize a program or programs for the voluntary certification of health IT as being in compliance with applicable certification criteria adopted” by HHS. And, according to ONC rule writers, HHS is obliged under the stimulus law to adopt standards, implementation specifications and certification criteria that will “enhance the interoperability, functionality, utility and security of health information technology.”
This same set of standards, implementation specifications and certification criteria were mandated by law to be produced by HHS before the end of 2009. The ONC beat the deadline with a day to spare, releasing them in a 136-page “interim final rule” on Dec. 30, 2009.
The ONC rule isn't expected to be officially published in the Federal Register until Jan. 13. It becomes effective 30 days after that. Public comments, however, will be accepted on the ONC rulemakers' handiwork for 60 days after official publication.
Here's how the CMS and the ONC rules are intertwined.
While providers must “meaningfully use” their subsidized EHRs, the systems themselves have to be “qualified” under a definition in the stimulus law and “certified” against criteria established through federal rulemaking by a certification organization “recognized” by the ONC.
Yet even after nearly 700 pages of new rules, another ONC rulemaking will be required. It will cover how certification bodies are recognized by the ONC.
“There will be a certification process,” ONC head David Blumenthal said during a public question-and-answer session when the two rules by the CMS and the ONC were released. The certification process “will be the subject of a second (ONC) rule which we hope to issue shortly. That will make clear how the process of certification will proceed.” That process will include how the ONC will go about vetting and “recognizing” an organization, or organizations, to do the testing and certification of EHR systems to meet the standards in the new rules.
ONC rulemakers noted there is nothing new about HHS anointing EHR certification organizations.
In 2006, CMS promulgated rules for an exception to the Stark law prohibition against hospitals compensating physicians in return for patient referrals.
Simultaneously, HHS' inspector general's office produced a waiver of the federal anti-kickback statute. Both the exemption and the waiver applied if a hospital, following the new guidelines, subsidized the cost of an EHR for an affiliated physician. The 2006 guidelines required that to qualify for the waivers, hospitals must provide an EHR that had been certified as “interoperable” by a certifying body “recognized” by the HHS secretary, says Brian J. McCarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions of Lake Mary, FL and known author on the subject of Meaningful Use.
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About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
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