Health IT Incentives On Congressional Fast Track

It appears that the new Administration's desire to provide incentives to doctors and hospitals to encourage their use of health information technology remains on the fast track to approval, according to an article in Government HealthIT magazine.

Among the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is an allocation of $20 billion to "jumpstart" efforts to computerize health records to cut costs and reduce medical errors over several years. In addition, it includes $4.1 billion to provide for preventative care and to evaluate the most effective health care treatments.

According the Government HealthIT story, "Beginning in 2011, the bill would authorize payments to physicians of up to $41,000 over five years for meaningful use of certified electronic health records. Starting in 2016 Medicare payments would be reduced for professionals who fail to use a certified system. Hospitals will also be eligible for incentive payments, with amounts related to their numbers of discharges."

The Act also specifies that the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department shall no later than December 31, 2009, "adopt ... an initial set of standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria."

In fact, it states that (as of now): "None of the funds appropriated ... may be used to make significant investments in, or provide significant funds for, the acquisition of hardware or software or for the use of an electronic health or medical record, or significant components thereof, unless such investments or funds are for certified products that would permit the full and accurate electronic exchange and use of health information in a medical record, including standards for security, privacy, and quality improvement functions adopted by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT."

In other words, no standards, no incentive funding; and once standards are defined, no incentives will be available if a doctor or hospital doesn't use an electronic health record system that is certified as meeting these standards.

The story notes that efforts to amend the health IT provisions of the Act have been rejected in the US House. On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee meets to mark up the Act. I'll let you know if the Senate makes any significant changes to what the House looks like approving.