Electronic Health Record Information

About the HITECH Act of 2009
What is the HITECH Act?
On February 17, 2009 a $787 Billion, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 aka “the Stimulus Bill,” was signed into law by the federal government. Included in this law is $19.2 Billion which is intended to be used to increase the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) by physicians and hospitals; this portion of the bill is called, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH Act. The government firmly believes in the benefits of using electronic health records and is ready to invest federal resources to proliferate its use. Title XIII in Division A, pages 112 through 165 and Title IV in Division B, pages 353 through 398, cover the HITECH portion of this economic recovery act.
Why did the government pass this law? Why is it important?
There has been extensive research done to show that utilizing an EHR would serve to improve patient care, increase patient safety and simplify compliance in the US healthcare system. Additionally, it would help cut costs in the long term, as it would minimize errors, increase productivity and administrative efficiency. For additional information on the potential benefits and savings associated with investing in an EMR system, the following link provides a good reference: HealthAffairs.org
What does the HITECH Act mean to physicians and hospitals? What incentives are available to me?
As described in the most recent published news, the intended use of the $19 Billion will be for incentive payments, grants and loans.
$17 Billion will be used for incentive payments to physicians and hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs. These incentives will be issued to current users and new adopters of certified EMR systems, who use the system in a meaningful way. The certification process and standardization criteria have NOT yet been determined, and will be decided upon by the end of 2009. The government has NOT yet made any reference to partnerships with any existing EMR certification organizations.
Medicare- Physicians seeing Medicare patients can receive up to $44K over the course of 5 years. An additional 10% is available to physicians operating in a designated Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA), for more information go to www.hpsafind.hrsa.gov. The general depiction of the payout schedule is in the following table.
How to read this table: The first row represents the year you adopt an EMR system. The first column represents how much the payout will be each year. For example, if you are a current user, your payout for 2012 will be $12K. If you adopt an EMR system in 2013, your payout will be $15K in 2013, $12k in 2014, and $8K in 2015.
Medicaid - Physicians whose caseloads include at least 30% Medicaid patients are eligible to receive up to $64K over the course of 5 years, the exact payments have not yet been determined. Physicians cannot obtain incentives from both Medicaid and Medicare, but hospitals can.
Hospitals - Hospitals can receive a base payment of up to $2M initially. Additional incentives are available according to a formula based on discharges, year of adoption etc., with a cap at $6M. The exact payment schedule is not yet determined.
The remaining $2 Billion will be dispersed as grants and loans to promote advancements in healthcare information technology (HIT) and improve accessibility to HIT in underprivileged areas. The grants will be available to researchers, Community Health Centers, Rural Health Centers and Indian Health Centers.
What happens if I don’t adopt and EMR system?
After 2015, further financial incentives will not be available and penalties will kick in. There will be a 1% reduction in Medicare fees per year, up to 3% by 2017.