The American Medical Informatics Association submitted comments on CMS' recent efforts to reduce documentation burden for physicians, largely praising the agency's work.
In June, CMS released several new proposals aimed at reducing documentation burden by reforming evaluation and management visit level guidelines, increasing the use of virtual care codes, and streamlining participation in Medicare incentive programs, including its "promoting interoperability program," formerly known as meaningful use.
Here are four highlights from AMIA's comments:
1. AMIA recommended CMS provide resources to support their proposed E&M reforms, such as emerging technologies and tools like natural language processing, medical device data, voice recognition software and the use of sensors to capture clinical activity.
"Our current documentation paradigm is incompatible with the digital age," Joseph Kannry, MD, chair of AMIA's public policy committee, said in a news release. "While imperfect, CMS must proceed with E&M documentation reforms to address growing dissatisfaction and declining wellness among clinicians. Our billing-focused health IT ecosystem must be reoriented to patient care."
2. AMIA applauded CMS for its efforts in the virtual healthcare realm, specifically its efforts to reimburse physicians for the services. "We view these policies as addressing long-standing Medicare reimbursement barriers to widespread adoption of virtual care tools meant to reach more patients in more places, especially those in underserved and rural areas," AMIA said in the letter.
3. Under the promoting interoperability program, CMS proposed including a new scoring methodology and scaling back on the measures hospitals would be required to report. AMIA largely supported these proposals, but noted that important functionalities related to retired patient engagement measures, such as secure messaging, education and use of patient-generated health data, must remain part of certified EHR technology.
4. "Meaningful use has served as a valuable vehicle to help digitize care delivery in the U.S. and thereby enable informatics-driven improvements in patient safety and clinical care," said Peter Embi, MD, AMIA board chair. "But now is the time to think differently about how this program should evolve to meet the rapidly-changing, and often challenging, environment of care delivery. These new proposals position the program to build on progress made to-date, and our recommendations provide impetus for even more innovative changes focused on the ultimate goals of improving health and healthcare."
To access AMIA's comments, click here.