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Good Afternoon,
Did anyone else see this notice? I got this from HealthData Management post.
President Obama on Monday signed into law the Patient Access and Medicare Protection Act, which makes it easier for eligible professionals and hospitals to apply for hardship exemptions from Meaningful Use electronic health record requirements.
In particular, the law provides EPs and EHs with relief from financial penalties for failing to meet Stage 2 MU requirements this year, ensuring that providers have “flexibility in applying the hardship exception for Meaningful Use for the 2015 EHR reporting period for 2017 payment adjustments.”
To avoid a penalty, physicians and hospitals had to attest that they met the requirements for MU Stage 2 for a period of 90 consecutive days during calendar year 2015. However, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not publish the 2015-2017 modifications rule for Stage 1 and 2 of MU until October. As a result, by the time providers were notified of the requirements, fewer than the 90 required days for reporting remained in the calendar year.
Introduced by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the bill received bipartisan support, passing both the House and Senate earlier this month before being sent to Obama for his signature. The law includes legislative language based on the Meaningful Use Hardship Relief Act, sponsored by Rep. Tom Price, M.D. (R-Ga.), giving CMS the authority to grant blanket hardship exceptions to affected providers for 2015.
“The recent modifications rule for Stage 2 of the Meaningful Use program for electronic health records failed to offer physicians and hospitals enough time to actually comply with the new requirements,” said Price in a statement. “This much-needed relief will make the hardship application process much easier for doctors to avoid penalties stemming from the administration’s mistake, and thereby provide more time to care for patients.”
I would like to see what other users make on this. Thank you.
Tara
Posted : December 29, 2015 8:42 am
Wonder why the created a new bill. My doctor talked to Tom Price directly who said his bill was going no where. Sounds like this new one is pretty much the same.
Edit... does sound like much of the same. not sure what exactly it means.... except maybe make it easier to apply for a hardship?
Posted : December 29, 2015 9:04 am
Tara,
I received this last week from MedPulse. This is fantastic news that it has been signed by Obama and a great relief!
Bill Allows Mass Exemptions From EHR Meaningful Use Penalty
The House and Senate last week passed a bipartisan bill that would help spare physicians a 3% Medicare pay cut in 2017 by rectifying extreme and uncontrollable circumstances created by none other than the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
On October 6, CMS released its final rules for how physicians could comply with Medicare's incentive program for meaningful use of electronic health record systems in 2015. Physicians needed to satisfy meaningful use requirements for only a 90-day period of their choosing, as opposed to the entire year, according to CMS. Failure to do so would mean a 3% reduction in Medicare reimbursement 2 years later.
The trouble was, there were fewer than 90 days left in 2015 when the regs came out, making it impossible for physicians to comply and avoid the penalty.
CMS recognized this absurd situation right away and said physicians could apply for a hardship exemption from the 2017 penalty under the category of "extreme and uncontrollable" circumstances. The agency would review the applications on a case-by-case basis, as required by law.
Get ready for a million hardship applications, organized medicine warned CMS.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) aimed to head off this looming bureaucratic logjam by introducing a bill called the Patient Access and Medicare Protection Act. One provision allows CMS to grant meaningful hardship exemptions for the 2017 penalty not only to individual physicians on a case-by-case basis but also to entire categories of physicians, as in all physicians beset by extreme and uncontrollable circumstances. Physicians will have until March 15 to apply for this mass escape hatch.
The bill, quickly passed by the House and Senate on December 18, now awaits the signature of President Barack Obama.
Assuming the president inks the legislation, the next likely step is for CMS to tell physicians how to apply for this blanket exemption from the 2017 meaningful use penalty, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Family Physicians told Medscape Medical News. A CMS spokesperson said the agency was unable to comment because "this is still legislation in progress."
American Academy of Family Physicians President Wanda Filer, MD, said in a news release that the passage of the act "heralds a reprieve to physician practices that are unable to successfully attest to meaningful use for 2015, through no fault of their own."
"This legislative solution will more easily allow CMS to make physicians whole," Dr Filer said.
Posted : December 29, 2015 9:15 am
Hi cjames,
The article you posted states that the penalty in 2017 is 3% but this is not (always) correct. If providers were participating in MU successfully through 2014 and only failed in 2015 due to various factors then the penalty would be 1% in 2017.
I only call this out as I have been looking for some form of ironclad evidence of what exactly they will be accepting for a hardship exemption (and if CMS delaying the release of the final rules is enough) - that article looked pretty promising but when I find one inaccuracy I worry about what else may be inaccurate.
Also I am leaving the door wide open to that article speaking on behalf of providers that have failed MU three years in a row so please, if you know the content of that writing, I would love for you to share it.
Thanks
Mike
Posted : December 29, 2015 9:51 am
Per https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/signed-legislation S. 2425 was signed on Dec 28. The content of the bill is here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s2425
Posted : December 29, 2015 10:15 am
Thanks for posting the bill SLHV!
Posted : December 29, 2015 10:18 am
Thanks for all the information - any thoughts on implications of claiming hardship for some providers while actually being able to attest for others? Thanks, HB
Posted : January 12, 2016 11:50 am
