In 2012, almost 2,300 acute-care hospitals — or 48 percent of all eligible hospitals — received $3.5 billion cumulatively in Medicare electronic health record incentive payments, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.
This is up significantly from 2011, when only 16 percent of eligible hospitals received EHR incentive payments from Medicare.
Roughly three out of every four hospitals that received a payment in 2012 were new to the program. Connecticut had the largest percentage (53 percent) of eligible hospitals that received EHR incentives for the first time.
Other Medicare EHR incentive payment data from the GAO's report included:
• The median payment to a hospital in 2012 was $1.4 million, down from $1.6 million in 2011. The lowest EHR incentive payment to a hospital was $4,827, while the highest exceeded $4.7 million.
• Most hospitals receiving payment were based in the South (39 percent). The West (15 percent) had the smallest proportion of hospitals receiving payment.
• Nonprofit hospitals represented 60 percent of those receiving payment.
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