Federal incentive

[bvishal]

Dear users,
I am bit confused on how by implementing EMR in my practice, I can take advantage of the federal incentives ? The criteria for selection seems to be pretty confusing , can anyone help me out ? Are there any CCHIT vendors who cover all the federal guidelines?

 

[vswamy]

Today medical practitioners are looking to avail of this federal incentive by trying to comply with the definition of meaningful use but at the same time EHR providers are looking at their own set of profits.
This misunderstanding is mostly I believe as a result of wrong interpretation of the federal guidelines. The EHR providers need to look at these guidelines from the prospective of the practitioners who deal with different specialties.
Each specialty EHR has its own set of challenges or requirements which I believe is overlooked by im most EHR vendors in a effort to merely follows federal guidelines. This is resulting in low usability to the practitioners, thus less ROI, finally redundancy of the EHR solution in place.
I think ROI is very important factor that should be duly considered when look achieve a 'meaning use' out of a EHR solution. Though one may get vendors providing 'meaning use' at a lower cost, their ROI / savings through the use of their EHR might be pretty low when compared to costlier initial investment. Found a pretty useful ROI tool and other good references on this topic at website of waitingroomsolutions.com that is pretty customizable and easy to use. It also accounts for the different specialty EHR's too.
Some of other topics cover by this vendor are:
Usability/meaningful use of EHR to avail of ARRA stimulus incentive.
Certification criteria for EHR

 

[Greenbeard]

Dear users,
I am bit confused on how by implementing EMR in my practice, I can take advantage of the federal incentives ? The criteria for selection seems to be pretty confusing , can anyone help me out ? Are there any CCHIT vendors who cover all the federal guidelines?

Well, first of all, do you treat Medicare patients or is at least 30% of your patient volume Medicaid/CHIP patients?

 

[Greenbeard]

CMS launched a new website on the stimulus's Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentives program yesterday. It's aimed mostly at providers so that might be helpful to you.