Dive Brief:
- CMS announced Friday an extension to the deadline for eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals to submit applications for hardship exemptions from the Medicare EHR Incentive Program's meaningful-use requirements.
- The new deadline is July 1. That's a bump of several months from the former deadline of March 15 for eligible professionals, and April 1 for eligible hospitals and CAHs.
- CMS says it is granting the extension to give providers "sufficient time to submit their applications to avoid adjustments to their Medicare payments in 2017."
Dive Insight:
CMS notes it is introducing new streamlined hardship applications intended to reduce the amount of information that is required to request an exception.
The new application process is the result of the Patient Access and Medicare Protection Act (PAMPA), which was signed into law in January to “ensure flexibility in applying the hardship exception for meaningful use for the 2015 EHR reporting period."
PAMPA established that CMS can consider hardship exceptions for categories of EPs, hospitals and CAHs listed on CMS’ website as of December 15, 2015. Before the law was enacted, CMS had to review all applications on a case-by-case basis.