Hospitals, Health IT

HHS dials back reporting in Meaningful Use Stage 3

HHS officials late Tuesday released the long-awaited Stage 3 rules, as well as modifications to the current Stage 2, shortening the reporting period for many healthcare providers.

Responding to waves of public backlash, the Department of Health and Human Services is easing compliance and reporting requirements in Stage 3 of the Meaningful Use incentive program for electronic health records. HHS officials late Tuesday released the long-awaited Stage 3 rules, as well as modifications to the current Stage 2.

HHS also is pushing back the start of Stage 3 yet another year, to Jan. 1, 2018. All providers will follow the calendar year; hospitals had been reporting based on the federal fiscal year, which starts three months earlier. The program will be optional for 2017, and anyone choosing to begin then will only need to attest to meeting the standards for 90 consecutive days rather than the full year.

Dozens of provider organizations had been clamoring for a 90-day attestation period in Stage 2, and HHS responded somewhat. The period will be just 90 days for everyone in 2015 and for new participants in  Meaningful Use in 2016 and 2017.

The goal, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is to “shift the paradigm so health IT becomes a tool for care improvement, not an end in itself.” Critics for years have rapped Meaningful Use for focusing too much on providers checking off boxes than actually improving care.

“We really want providers that want to be successful in this area to be successful,” CMS CMO Dr. Patrick Conway said in a conference call with the news media.

Meaningful Use had been an incentive program since 2011. This year, Medicare penalties for noncompliance kicked in, and the criticism accelerated.

Photo: Flickr user Juhan Sonin

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