CMS Issues Final Rule on EHR Certification Flexibility, MU Stage 2 Extension, and MU Stage 3 Timeline

I can’t figure out what government process leads to final rules being regularly published at the end of the day on Friday. I know that Neil Versel from Meaningful Health IT News has hypothesized that they release it late on Friday when they want to bury the news. Maybe that’s the case, but the EHR certification flexibility doesn’t seem like something they’d want to bury. Regardless of the odd timing, CMS has just published the final rule that provides flexibility around EHR certification in the meaningful use program.

In their announcement, I’m not noticing any changes from what was in the proposed rule, but with some time we’ll know for sure if there’s any gotchas hidden in the final rule. No doubt many a meaningful use expert have just had their Labor Day weekend ruined by the announcement of this final rule.

Unfortunately, after the proposed rule was published most people loved the flexibility, but decided that it was too late for them to really benefit from the changes. I’ll be interested to see how many organizations will really benefit from these changes.

More importantly, the rule still includes the nebulous asterisk, “Only providers that could not fully implement 2014 Edition CEHRT for the EHR reporting period in 2014 due to delays in 2014 Edition CEHRT availability.” For EHR vendors that are already 2014 certified, this little asterisk feels like ONC is letting all the EHR vendors who didn’t perform well off the hook. It’s basically rewarding EHR vendors who can’t or have chosen not to keep up. Maybe that’s why the rule was published late on a Friday.

One could make the case that ONC was more worried about the doctors/hospitals whose EHR vendors failed to become 2014 certified, than the EHR vendors themselves. However, that part of the story is not likely to be told. Plus, it doesn’t take into account how a doctor/hospital whose EHR vendor is 2014 Certified will feel having to do the substantially harder MU stage 2 while their colleagues only have to do MU stage 1. (UPDATE: This EHR Certification Tool that CMS created seems to say that even if you’re on a 2014 Certified EHR and scheduled to do MU stage 2, that you can do Stage 1 or stage 2 objectives with 2014 CQMs. The chart linked at the bottom of this post says it as well. Seems like they’re being pretty open in their interpretation of “due to delays in 2014 Edition CEHRT availability”. Clear as mud?)

I’ve captured a chart showing the EHR Certification flexibility that this final rule provides:
EHR Certification Flexibility - 2014 Certified EHR

Plus, here’s the latest chart showing the meaningful use timelines:
Updated Meaningful Use Stage 3 Timeline

Other Resources and Responses:
CMS Official Press Release
CHIME’s Response
CMS’ EHR Certification Rule Tool
CMS HITECH 2014 CEHRT Flexibility Chart

We’ll keep adding other responses and commentary on the final rule as we find them.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

2 Comments

  • Jim,
    Thanks for sharing. It’s clear as mud. Their attempt to toe the line and encourage adoption of 2014 Certified EHR and MU stage 2 is making things really confusing. Sadly, the more I read, the more confused I get on when the exception applies and when it doesn’t. Time to roll around in the final rule for a bit.

Click here to post a comment
   

Categories