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Meaningful Use – Step by Step

So you’re toying with the idea of applying for Meaningful Use Funds and want to learn more.  So, what are the steps to figure out if you qualify, apply, attest and get paid?  We put together this step by step set of instructions to get you started.

  1. Decide whether you are going to go for Medicaid or Medicare Funds.  If you are a behavioral health organization you can’t apply at the organizational level and instead need to apply through your eligible providers.  For most behavioral health providers, it makes sense to apply for Medicaid as you will get more money.  The above link also includes some excerpts from the American Association of Family Physicians, who also say go for Medicaid if you qualify, it’s more money.
  2. Figure out how many Eligible Professionals you have that qualify.  For Medicaid, that’s Psychiatrists and ARNPs.  They will need to have 30% of their patients from Medicaid.  CMS has a handy step by step calculator to see if you meet the rules.
  3. You will need to register at the CMS website.  CMS has a handy guide for Eligible Professionals who are planning to apply for Meaningful Use funds.  It’s a downloadable PDF with step by step instructions on what you do to register.  Of special note is on page 10 of the guide where they show you how you can specify a separate Tax ID Number for the payment, allowing you to reassign the payment directly to your organization (using the “Group EIN instead of EP’s SSN).  Click here to Download the guide.  This is important as, if you reassign that payment, you can spend less time worrying about updating your provider agreement.
  4. Figure out if your EHR is Fully Certified.  Your Vendor should be able to tell you that and tell you what their certification number is.   For e.g., Echo’s ONC Certification number for Clinician’s Desktop is 02092011-9053-8. Our CMS EHR Number is 30000001U7KFEAS.  It’s very important that you have a completely certified solution because if you have only a modular certified solution, it means you won’t qualify for funds until you get a second product or products(s) that meet the requirements.  Here’s a quick explanation on the difference between modular and complete certification.
  5. Find out when your state opens up so you can attest that you have a certified EHR.  For the first year of Meaningful Use for Medicaid, there is the AIU rule (Adopt Implement Upgrade), which means all you need to do is adopt, implement or upgrade to a Fully Certified Ambulatory EHR.  The second year you will need to report on 90 days of Meaningful Use and then years 3-6 you will need to report on 12 months.  To learn if your state is open yet, check out the list at the CMS website.  You will also need to provide financial data for proof of the 90 days of Medicaid data that shows you had 30% Medicaid clients.  For Echo customers they can get this right from Revenue Manager.
  6. If you follow the link in step 5, you will see links to each state’s registration site.  At each state site it will tell you what you need to do to register for the first year.  They will probably need your EHR Vendor’s ONC number that we mentioned above in step 4.  You may also need to have a letter from the vendor but each state is a little different.
  7. That’s it.  Well, sort of.  You still want to make sure that you start to prepare for that first reporting period.For Medicaid, the timeline for reporting, as we mentioned in step five above, is:
    1st Year, Adopt, Implement or Upgrade to the Certified Product
    2nd Year, reporting on 90 days worth of data and then
    Years 3-6, report on 12 months of data each year.CMS has a couple of great resources on this.  First of all, the list of Meaningful Use Criteria.  Then you can figure out what you need to do in terms of implementation of new features that you have never used before.  Make sure you also realize that stage 2 will also up the criteria a bit.  Here’s a quick piece we wrote on that.
  8. If you want to see how you are doing, CMS has an interactive attestation calculator to see how you are doing.
  9. Good luck with your registration process.  Feel free to contact us if you have more questions.

Related Information

Echo Customer, Grand Lake Mental Health Center, is first Behavioral Health Provider to receive Meaningful Use Funds

Attend a Web Demo of Clinician’s Desktop, Our Fully Certified EHR

Meaningful Use Overview

Echo Receives Complete Ambulatory Certification