Dive Brief:
- Fifty-five percent of physicians won't attest to Stage 2 of the government's "meaningful use" program, a new survey of nearly 2,000 physicians by MPI in partnership with SERMO finds.
- Some respondents said attestation just doesn't make sense for their practice or for their patients.
- Others complain that the patient-engagement requirements are too cumbersome, especially for older patients.
Dive Insight:
While Stage 1 of CMS' EHR Incentive Program mainly required physicians to log in easy data points to prove they actually bought an EHR, Stage 2 is much harder and more tedious. With the many other competing pressures physicians face, such as ICD-10, influxes of Medicaid patients under the Affordable Care Act and ever-changing payer policies, it's no wonder docs are shelving the program.
As of November 1, only 43,898 eligible professionals and 1,903 eligible hospitals had attested to Meaningful Use for the 2014 reporting period, out of 500,000 active registrants, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Of those, only 1,478 eligible professionals and 840 eligible hospitals had attested for Stage 2.
Making matters worse, CMS announced in December that it would penalize more than 257,000 physicians and other healthcare providers 1% of their pay next year for failing to achieve meaningful use of an EHR.