While the final ACO Rules (“Final Rules”) have done away with the importance of participaitng phyisicians being meaningful users of an EHR under the HITECH EHR Incentive Program (“Meaningful Users”), the importance of meaningful use by participating primary care providers has not gone away.
CMS sought to align an ACO’s use of Electronic Health Records (“EHR”) with the EHR Incentive Program in the proposed ACO rules (“Proposed Rules”). The Proposed Rules required that 50 percent of primary care physicians be Meaningful Users by the beginning of the second performance year. The Final Rules, however, do not require a pre-determined percentage of physicians to be Meaningful Users as an ACO condition of participation, but rather will measure the percent of primary care physicians who successfully become Meaningful Users. This measure will be assessed on a sliding scale and CMS will weight an ACO’s performance on this measure as twice that of any other measure for scoring purposes and for determining compliance with quality performance requirements. The Final Rules are structured to emphasize and reward an ACO who’s physicians become Meaningful Users.
Should you have any questions, please contact Jeff Short at 317.977.1413 or jshort@wp.hallrender.com.
