Electronic Health Record Incentive Program

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (aka ARRA, Recovery Act, or Stimulus Act), enacted into Law on 2/17/2009, contains Title IV of Division B, which legislates a new payment for certain entities. These provisions are collectively referred to as the HITECH (Health Information Technology) Act.

The goal of this legislation was to establish incentive payments to eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals, critical access hospitals (CAHs), and Medicare Advantage Organizations to promote the adoption and meaningful use of interoperable health information technology (HIT) and qualified electronic health records (EHRs). These incentive payments are part of a broader effort under the HITECH Act to accelerate the adoption of HIT and utilization of qualified EHRs.

For the purposes of the Medicare Incentive to eligible Acute Care Subsection (d) Hospitals, the role of the FI/MAC is limited to collecting data from the cost report regarding the Medicare utilization and charity care provision.

For the Critical Access Hospital, the FI/MAC role includes reviewing and approving documentation related to the purchase of qualified electronic healthcare record (EHR) technology. Once a CAH has attested to Meaningful Use (MU) status through the National Level Repository (NLR), they should then submit documentation supporting the cost of the qualified technology assets that they have purchased to the Audit Supervisor assigned to their team (i.e. the same contact they send all other cost report related documentation to.)

Once all of the data is gathered for the Acute Care or CAH facility, it is then communicated to the NLR for actual payment calculations and processing. For the first year, this payment should take place shortly after the facility attests to Meaningful User status.

Note that the FI/MAC is not involved in the registration process, the meaningful use attestation process, or the actual incentive payment process. For questions regarding these processes, you should visit the EHR portal(external link) on the CMS website. Note that this portal provides a helpful FAQ section, as well as other detailed sections that should answer many of the questions you may have.

Page Last Updated: Thursday, 15-Dec-2011 15:11:14 CST