Why Should Practitioners Adopt an EHR System Now?
Because the Government will pay you to do it. But you need to begin soon or the subsidies will first diminish, then disappear. There are two Government Sponsored Stimulus Programs contained in the
HITECH Act, a Medicaid Stimulus and a Medicare Stimulus.
Medicaid Stimulus Program
1. Physicians qualify if their proportion of Medicaid based patient volume is a minimum of 30% of their total patient volume (20% for Pediatricians).
2. The first year payment is capped at $21,250 for purchase, implementation, support, and training for an EHR system.
3. Subsequent years of payments are capped at $8,500 per year for operation, maintenance and use of EHR technology. Payments will be made for a total of 6 years.
4. Payments will begin in Fiscal Year 2011.
Medicare Stimulus Program
Physicians will be paid at the rate of 75% of their qualified Medicare Billings up to a maximum Stimulus Payment of $18,000 in the first year. Thus, it is only necessary to submit $24,000 in qualified Medicare billings to receive the maximum Stimulus payment in the first year. The payments will diminish the later a practitioner gets started, and they will disappear if you haven't started by 2014. That is only four years away. The schedule is as follows:
|
Maximum Medicare Stimulus Payments
|
|
Year you first file
|
2011
|
2012
|
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
2016
|
Total
|
|
2011
|
$18,000
|
$12,000
|
$8,000
|
$4,000
|
$2,000
|
$0
|
$44,000
|
|
2012
|
0
|
$18,000
|
$12,000
|
$8,000
|
$4,000
|
$2,000
|
$44,000
|
|
2013
|
0
|
0
|
$15,000
|
$12,000
|
$8,000
|
$4,000
|
$39,000
|
|
2014
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$15,000
|
$12,000
|
$8,000
|
$35,000
|
|
2015
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
Given that the maximum subsidy is available only for the first two years and that it will require an implementation period of an estimated 9 months to meet the HHS reporting criteria, then the prudent thing to do would be to begin before the end of 2010.
Do not wait until the last minute because the providers of EHR systems are going to experience backlogs of anywhere from 6 months to 1 year given the mandate to adopt EHR and the corresponding table of stimulus payments to incent the adoption. Some providers already have 6 month lead times for implementation.