Below is a recent report concerning New Mexico's Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentive Program payments for eligible professionals and eligible hospitals that have attested to Stage 1 of Meaningful Use.  Although reimbursing $11 million is a great start, in reality only 189 EPs and EHs out of 700+ in NM have attested— ranking NM near the bottom among attestations in the US. Furthermore, $11 million is a fraction of actual funds available to New Mexico's physicians and hospitals.


Wildflower International, Ltd. emphasizes that incentives available for reimbursement are tangible and being awarded to real EPs and EHs. However, there is much more work ahead and excessive amounts of money to be claimed. Wildflower is the only private company in NM that offers EHR and HIT adoption, implementation, and MU attestation services. Contact Wildflower today and learn how services offered will help practices/hospitals achieve their EHR goals which will ultimately lead to better patient care and improved healthcare services for all New Mexicans.

Visit us here: www.gowildnhitech.com
Email us here: mneal@wildflowerintl.com

Call us here: 505-466-9111 ext. 111                        

 

Susana Martinez                     Sidonie Squier

Governor                                  Secretary  

Media contact: Matt Kennicott (505) 827‐6236 or (505) 819‐1402 matt.kennicott@state.nm.us

January 23, 2012

NM Medicaid Issues $11.7 Million in Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program Payments 

Successful Response to Technology Aimed at Improving Patient Care

Santa Fe, NM – Healthcare providers across the state are finding something extra in their bank accounts as the New Mexico Medicaid Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program began issuing incentive payments to individual practitioners and hospitals that successfully attested to the adoption, implementation or upgrade (AIU) of certified EHR technology. With the goal of improving the quality of patient care, hospitals and health care professionals will use the technology to collect data and meet meaningful use objectives and clinical measures established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Eleven hospitals and 178 eligible professionals successfully attested to AIU of certified electronic health records technology, resulting in a total of $11,704,136.62 in federal dollars being issued through the New Mexico Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. In this first round of payments through the end of December 2011, many eligible professionals opted to assign their payments to their clinic or group practice. Payments were dispersed as far north as Raton, Farmington and Taos, east to Santa Rosa, Clovis and Portales, south to Hobbs and Las Cruces and west to Deming, Lordsburg and Silver City, with Los Alamos, Espanola, Santa Fe and Albuquerque in between.

The EHR Incentive Program provides funding support to certain Medicaid health professionals and hospitals for the adoption and meaningful use of certified EHR technology. The money for the incentive payments is provided by the federal government, but the program is administered by the New Mexico Human Services Department (HSD), Medical Assistance Division.

“We’ve had a phenomenal response to the program,” said Julie Weinberg, HSD Medical Assistance Division Director. “Another 500 eligible professionals and eligible hospitals are in the process of registering, attesting, or having their eligibility information validated by program staff. I’m pleased to see that Medicaid providers from all around the state are taking advantage of the program.”

Incentives for eligible hospitals are calculated through a formula created by CMS and are paid over a three year period for AIU of certified EHR technology in program year one, and for meaningful use of the technology in program years two and three. 

As much as $300 million could eventually be distributed to participating providers over the course of the program.   

The New Mexico Medicaid EHR Incentive Program spans the years 2011 to 2021. Within that time frame, eligible professionals may be paid up to $63,750 over a six‐year period, with a first‐year incentive payment of $21,250 for the adoption, implementation, or upgrade (AIU) of certified EHR technology and $8,500 in each of the subsequent program years for the meaningful use of the technology.

“The New Mexico Medicaid EHR Incentive Program is an integral part of state and federal efforts to improve the quality, efficiency and safety of healthcare through the use of health information technology and the exchange of information,” said Sidonie Squier, Human Services Department Secretary, “while maintaining patient privacy and security.”

“This program helps get the needed EHR technology into the hands of our Medicaid health care professionals,” added Squier.

Medicaid providers will use the technology to capture data and meet meaningful use objectives and clinical quality measures established by CMS with the goal of advancing clinical processes and improving patient outcomes. Expected results include accurate and complete patient health information, improved patient care coordination and active engagement by patients in their own healthcare.

Two of the objectives for eligible professionals are providing patients with an electronic copy of their health information, including diagnostic test results, problem lists, medication lists, and medication allergies; and providing clinical summaries for patients for each office visit.

Eligible professionals for the program are physicians, dentists, pediatricians, nurse practitioners, and certified midwives. Also eligible are physician assistants practicing predominantly in federally qualified health centers (FQHC) or rural health clinics (RHC) that are led by a physician assistant. Eligible hospitals are acute care hospitals, including critical access and cancer hospitals.

Health care professionals must meet certain criteria to participate in the program, including minimum Medicaid patient volume thresholds. The criteria vary for certain provider categories, such as for hospitals and pediatricians.

Medicaid providers interested in registering for the EHR Incentive Program should visit New Mexico’s EHR Incentive Program outreach page http://nm.arraincentive.com

For more information about the program, visit the HSD’s Medical Assistance Division website http://www.hsd.state.nm.us/mad/MedicaidEHRIncentiveProgram.html

Hospitals Slowly Moving Toward Stage 1 of Meaningful Use - Hospital EMR and EHR

A new report from HIMSS Analytics concludes that the inevitable is happening, but slowly. According to researchers, who reported their findings in December 2011, virtually all categories of hospitals are showing greater ability to achieve Meaningful Use Stage 1, including:

*  Academic medical centers

*  General med/surg hospitals

*  Hospitals with 400 to 499 licensed beds

*  Hospitals with 500+ licensed beds

*  Urban  hospitals

*  Multi-hospitals

*  Hospitals already at Stage 5, 6 and 7 on the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM)

According to HIMSS researchers, hospitals in the seven categories above are moving faster than their peers when it comes to IT adoption.  Hospitals at the high end of EMRAM are moving up more quickly, as well.  As hospitals geared up to meet Stage 1, researchers say, the number of hospitals at stages 6 and 7 of EMRAM is growing as well.

As we’ve previously noted here, however, calling this a success would be looking at the nearly empty glass as half-full.  Even HIMSS admits that only five percent of hospitals have achieved Stage 6 of the EMRAM model (give or take) and just 1.2 percent are at EMRAM Stage 7.

There is at least a little bit of good news.  Of the 585 hospitals surveyed by HIMSS,  about half are ready, most likely to be ready or somewhat likely to be ready to collect incentive payments this year.

The hospitals that reported being “somewhat likely” had achieved at least two menu items, and between five and nine of the core items needed to qualify for incentives.

But hospitals with less than 100 beds-generally rural, critical access hospitals-are not doing even as well as their peers. Only 20 percent told HIMMS that they were ready or most likely to meet Stage One goals.

By the way, the HIMSS research included one discomfiting side note, on security. Of the 585 hospitals that weighed in, just 25 percent said that they protected EHR data by conducting and reviewing a security risk analysis, doing needed suricty updfates and correcting security deficiencies. Oops — there goes compliance witih 45 CFT 164.308 (a) (1), the relevant HIPAA security rule. But that’s a tale for a different blog item, isn’t it, folks?

Related posts:

1. More Hospitals Ready for Meaningful Use, But Have Numbers Hit A Plateau?
2. KLAS Rates Hospital EMRs’ Meaningful Use Capabilities
3. Hospitals Making Last-Minute Plays To Capture Meaningful Use Dollars

EHR and the Real Return on Investment

By: Wildflower International, Ltd.

A basic EHR includes only a patient's medical history, demographics, diagnoses, medications, and allergies, as well as the ability to prescribe and view lab and imaging results electronically. This type of system does not necessarily include functions such as drug interaction warnings and problem lists. Switching to more capable EHR systems (beyond just basic) will not only increase practice competence, but will help practitioners to qualify for government financial incentives, increasing the practical and monetary benefits derived from making the shift to electronic records.¹

A 2009 survey by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) reveals that early adopters of EHRs overall practice performance is being positively impacted by EHR implementation. Todd Evenson, assistant director of survey operations, MGMA-ACPE says "The key is that physician practices and health systems are recognizing those Meaningful Use dollars are available to them. Obviously, in an environment constrained by rising costs, they're looking for every opportunity to improve revenue." Implementing a capable EHR system and training staff to use it effectively, is what results in simultaneous capture of Federal incentives and increased revenue thanks to improved service and productivity. ²

Properly implemented EHRs can certainly pay for themselves and more. Proper implementation will necessitate the purchase of software, hardware (or hosting services) and training.  From the survey, MGMA discovered that better-performing practices spent about $30,000 per physician on their EHRs, whereas other practices averaged about $20,000. Successful groups did not purchase more expensive EHRs; they spent more money on training and implementation, which are key to EHR success. The better performers also spent slightly more than other groups did on maintenance of their EHRs--$540 per provider per month vs. $500 per month (maintenance figures include subscriptions to cloud-based EHRs as well as software maintenance fees for purchased systems.) ²

The 2009 MGMA survey determined that the main cost savings experienced by medical groups was in staffing changes, although eventual increase in productivity and efficiency was significant after about a year. On average, IT staffing per full-time-equivalent (FTE) physician increased by 0.13 FTEs, while medical records staffing fell from 0.34 to 0.19 FTEs per physician. This trade-off is just another contribution to increasing the bottom line. ^{2, 3}

On-site IT help will be needed to maintain and support the local servers, hardware and network, but web-based EHRs remove most of this cost burden. Thus the improved efficiency seen with EHR usage is realized more quickly. Medical support staff that previously managed physical records can be re-purposed from paper chart maintenance to electronic chart maintenance in order to avoid job loss. ³

Electronic procedure documentation reduces transcription, paper storage and image printing. Systems which integrate EHR data with billing, e-prescribing, collections, claims, scheduling, messaging, reports, lab results, imaging, referrals and other clinical and practice procedures enhance the patient encounter experience and immediately amplify the profitability realized from transitioning to an electronic records system.

A recent (Jan 12,2012) Electronic Content Management study by Nucleus Research revealed an average return of $6.12 returned for every dollar spent on content management applications (which are similar in mechanism to EHR implementation.) The savings are realized through more streamlined processes, greater productivity, reduced paper use, avoidance of staff costs. ⁴

Bringing this all to a close, the common perspective for EHR creating more ROI for the physician is usually based on the idea that making work more efficient will allow practices to take on more patients and cut labor costs creating higher revenues. However, as portrayed in the article, there is plenty of ROI available to physicians solely from the Meaningful Use incentives and other government benefits with the underlying message being to adopt EHR and adopt early.

1. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db79.htm

2. http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/EMR/232600025

3. http://www.practicefusion.com/ehrbloggers/2012/01/health-it-and-job-creation.html

4.http://nucleusresearch.com/news/press-releases/electronic-content-management-applications-return-6-dot-12-for-every-dollar-invested-nucleus-research-/