The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has made several minor revisions to the meaningful use final rules, which outline the requirements for demonstrating meaningful use of electronic health records in order to be eligible for incentive payments, according to a Government Health IT news report.
The document outlining the revisions was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 29. Revisions to the final rule include the following:
• "Unique patients" has been changed to "office visits" to clarify when healthcare providers calculate the clinical summary objective, which measures the number of office visits during which time patients receive a clinical summary within three business days. Providers must report at least 50 percent to meet the objective.
• The five rules concerning use of clinical decision support has been reduced to one rule, and the one rule does not have to be linked to any particular quality measure.
• Restrictions on e-prescribing controlled substances have been clarified to encompass all controlled substances under schedules II-V, rather than just schedule II drugs. This was done to align with the Drug Enforcement Agency's final rule.
Read the news report about meaningful use final rule revisions.
Read other coverage about the meaningful use:
- HIMSS: 22% of Hospitals Can Meet at Least 10 of 14 Core Measurements of Stage 1 Meaningful Use
- National Coordinator David Blumenthal Assures Specialists Can Meet Meaningful Use Requirements
- Government Health IT Panel Develops Quality Measures for Stage 2 Meaningful Use
The document outlining the revisions was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 29. Revisions to the final rule include the following:
• "Unique patients" has been changed to "office visits" to clarify when healthcare providers calculate the clinical summary objective, which measures the number of office visits during which time patients receive a clinical summary within three business days. Providers must report at least 50 percent to meet the objective.
• The five rules concerning use of clinical decision support has been reduced to one rule, and the one rule does not have to be linked to any particular quality measure.
• Restrictions on e-prescribing controlled substances have been clarified to encompass all controlled substances under schedules II-V, rather than just schedule II drugs. This was done to align with the Drug Enforcement Agency's final rule.
Read the news report about meaningful use final rule revisions.
Read other coverage about the meaningful use:
- HIMSS: 22% of Hospitals Can Meet at Least 10 of 14 Core Measurements of Stage 1 Meaningful Use
- National Coordinator David Blumenthal Assures Specialists Can Meet Meaningful Use Requirements
- Government Health IT Panel Develops Quality Measures for Stage 2 Meaningful Use