President Barack Obama officially nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as HHS Secretary and named former HCFA administrator Nancy-Ann DeParle as Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office for Health Reform.
Now that national healthcare leadership is imminent, hospitals, provider groups, payers, vendors, and patients are anticipating action on the next steps outlined by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Every IT professional in the land is being asked to present an overview to their Board summarizing the possibilities.
As a public service, I have created an overview presentation which summarizes all the healthcare IT provisions of the Act and outlines the incentives and penalties for physicians and hospitals.
You have my permission to use this presentation for your organization without attribution or copyright restriction . I did my best to interpret the Act accurately, but cannot guarantee that every word is precisely right (it's long and complex legislation).
Over the next few weeks, I will outline some of the steps we're taking in Massachusetts to prepare for the work ahead. For example, tomorrow's blog will describe BIDMC/BIDPO and Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative efforts to create quality data warehousing based on healthcare information exchange. Given the number of times that quality measurement and healthcare information exchange is mentioned in the Act, it seems prudent to get this started and empower all our local stakeholders by meeting those stimulus incentive criteria.
It's an exciting time and I believe all healthcare IT organizations will benefit from enhanced collaboration - "all for one and one for all". Hence I will be especially transparent about our plans, sharing the presentations I am preparing so they may be leveraged by all stakeholders.
John - Thanks for another great post. On page 6 of your powerpoint deck, you describe the hospital incentive calculation. Would you be willing to run the calculation for BIDMC? I'm guessing around $6M over 4 years. Is that correct?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mike
Nice article on Computerworld. It and the Broken Window Effect. Hope you can discuss it also on your blog....
ReplyDeleteDr. Halamka - Thanks for preparing and sharing this. I have a question about the Medicaid incentives.
ReplyDeleteHere’s what I understood about the Medicaid incentives for meaningful EHR use in the final ARRA bill: “The State is authorized to make payments to Medicaid providers totaling no more than 85% percent of net average allowable costs for certified EHR technology (and support services including maintenance and training that is for, or is necessary for the adoption and operation of, such technology).”
You have dollar values on slide 8 that I personally did not see in the bill: “$63,750 for adoption, implementation, upgrade, and maintenance - $21,250 to adopt and $8500/year for 5 years to maintain.”
Would you please direct me to where you got those numbers?
Thanks
For details on the Medicaid provisions, see the AAFP summary
ReplyDelete