Health IT, Policy

Slavitt: Meaningful Use is all but dead

Acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt said more news would be forthcoming March 25.

Andrew-SlavittMeaningful Use Stage 3 is scheduled to start as early as 2017, but now it looks like it may not happen at all.

Acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt dropped this news — in some ways a bombshell, but in other ways not much of a surprise — Monday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.

Slavitt tweeted the following, referencing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, the “doc fix” legislation that passed last year:

He followed up Tuesday with this series of tweets:

In his talk at J.P. Morgan, Slavitt reportedly said to circle March 25 as the date CMS would be providing more details on future health IT incentive programs that would focus on patient outcomes rather than technology usage.

“We have to get the hearts and minds of physicians back. I think we’ve lost them,” Slavitt said, according to Family Practice News.

“As any physician will tell you, physician burden and frustration levels are real. Programs that are designed to improve often distract. Done poorly, measures are divorced from how physicians practice and add to the cynicism that the people who build these programs just don’t get it,” Slavitt continued.

He also had some unkind words for anyone suspected of information blocking. “We’re deadly serious about interoperability. Technology companies that look for ways to practice data blocking in opposition to new regulations will find that it will not be tolerated,” Slavitt is quoted as saying.

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