Practice Fusion welcomed more than 100 individuals for the Meaningful Use Webinar last week. We enjoyed terrific participation and your thoughtful questions! Prior to the webinar, we collected your Meaningful Use questions and answered them here.
The Webinar slides are available on EHRBloggers. As well, we maintained a list of questions asked during the webinar. These questions, and their answers, are provided below.
As a reminder, don’t hesitate to contact Practice Fusion support if you have any additional questions!
Thank you again for your attendance and thoughtful participation!
How will physicians using Practice Fusion satisfy the clinical summary core meaningful use criteria?
Practice Fusion will automatically provide office visit summary notes to the PHR to satisfy the Meaningful Use requirement for a timely office summary.
What is the earliest Practice Fusion users can receive their Meaningful Use Incentive check? How will it be received?
Practice Fusion will be fully certified as a complete EHR by this summer. After 90 days of Meaningful Use, users may attest to CMS and will soon thereafter be eligible to receive incentive payments. Incentive payments will likely be distributed as checks.
Does PHR portal allow patients to see physician’s office notes or just dx, meds, allergy and immunization, appointment only?
The PHR can be accessed by patients only after the doctor has given him/her permission. The data contained in the PHR is related to diagnoses, medications, allergies, etc. There are no office notes contained in the PHR.
Whenever a Meaningful Use criteria requires that a percentage of patients (eg. Clinical summaries provided to patients for more than 50% of all office visits within 3 business days), is CMS referring to all patients or just CMS patients?
CMS is referring to all patients, not just Medicare or Medicaid patients.
How should physicians decide which optional Meaningful Use criteria to select?
Physicians may choose any optional Meaningful User to implement, but we recommend selecting criteria that are pertinent to your practice.
How would CMS audit doc’s attestation? What are the penalties in case CMS disputes your attestation?
This has not been clarified by CMS, but would likely be similar to an income tax audit.
We are a multi-provider practice working out of 4 offices. Do we ALL have to be using EHR for 90 continuous days prior to attesting to Meaningful Use?
Meaningful Use attestation is provider- rather than practice-centric. Therefore, each provider within a practice must demonstrate Meaningful Use to be eligible to receive EHR incentives. Within a practice, some providers may elect to apply for EHR incentives and other may not. This will not affect individual eligibility.
If a practice still has handwritten doc notes, is it necessary to scan in all past and future paper for MU?
It is not necessary to scan handwritten chart notes to be eligible for Meaningful Use.
If you have a patient who is dual enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, how is that patient counted in determining which stimulus to apply for?
He/She may be counted for either program. The provider makes the final program enrollment decision and can count their dual-eligible patients based on their enrollment.
Are you required to see certain percentage of Medicare patients out of a practice to qualify for incentive?
No, you are not required to see a certain volume of Medicare patients to participate in the EHR Incentive Program.
Does the Meaningful Use Incentive Program money follow the doctor if he/she leaves a practice?
Yes. The incentive program is provider-specific and centric. If a provider attains Meaningful Use in 2011 and then moves to a new practice for 2012, he/she will need to reapply to the program, switch his/her practice affiliation, and demonstrate Meaningful Use within the new practice to receive benefits in 2012.
We’re GI practice and we do not prescribe medication. Would core MU “CPOE for Medications” apply to our practice? Would we be exempt from this?
Any provider who writes fewer than 100 prescriptions during the 90 day Meaningful Use period are exempt from e-Rx.
Do nurse practioners qualify for Meaningful Use incentives?
Nurse Practioners can qualify for Meaningful Use incentives under the Medicaid program.
Thomas McMennamin
Health Policy Manager
Practice Fusion EHR
