Meaningful Use—Incentive Payments and Program Requirements
AHIMA Meaningful Use White Paper Series
Paper no. 3
The second paper in this series began an overview of the provider requirements within the notice of proposed rulemaking on meaningful use, published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on January 13, 2010. This paper continues that overview with a look at the proposed payment methods and program requirements.
After describing the criteria for the meaningful use of EHRs, the NPRM addresses the incentive payments themselves, broken down among the Medicare Fee for Service (FFS), Medicare Advantage (MA), and Medicaid programs.
FFS Payments to Providers
CMS takes the definition of physician to mean one of five types of professionals: a doctor of medicine or osteopathy, a doctor of dental surgery or dental medicine, a doctor of podiatric medicine, a doctor of optometry, or a chiropractor. Hospital-based physicians do not qualify for an incentive payment (pp. 1904–7). (more…)


