Senate panel pushes HHS to delay stage 3 meaningful use July 29, 2015 Medi-Cal, Medicare CMS, Meaningful Use, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 0 The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is asking the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to delay the stage 3 meaningful use rules, its chairman, Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said during a news conference Thursday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued proposed rules for stage 3 in March 2015. What's concerning providers is that this stage differs from the others in the degree to which a medical provider, to fulfill its requirements, must depend on other providers to document electronically that they have fulfilled the requirements. According to a July 20 policy analysis by the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation, this means that if providers do not send electronic summaries, the medical provider who was supposed to receive them will fail to comply with the rulemaking. “This leads to a situation in which even tech-savvy providers will not be able to fulfill the requirements of the third stage of the meaningful use program, regardless of their intentions and efforts,” according to the Brookings analysis. The California Medical Association was among a number of organizations who have been pushing for a delay in the implementation of stage 3. As of now, CMS expects to begin enforcing stage 3 requirements in 2017. Comments are closed.
