AHA urges CMS to quickly finalize proposals to ease EHR meaningful use

The AHA today urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to quickly finalize the shorter, 90-day reporting period for 2015 meaningful use of electronic health records and other proposals to make Stage 2 requirements more flexible. In addition, CMS should allow hospitals to choose whether to report on a fiscal or calendar year basis for 2015 and 2016 before moving to mandatory calendar year reporting in 2017; open the attestation window for 2015 no later than Aug. 1; finalize proposed changes to meaningful use objectives that increase flexibility for hospitals and other providers; and refrain from changes to objectives and measures that make achieving meaningful use Stage 2 more difficult, wrote AHA Executive Vice President Rick Pollack, commenting on proposed changes to meaningful use requirements for 2015 through 2017. “The meaningful use program must succeed so that we can build on the tremendous adoption of EHRs over the past five years, and use EHRs to support care improvements, patient engagement and new models of care,” he said.