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ASK YOUR LEGISLATORS TO COSPONSOR HEALTH IT BILLS
Bills would provide equitable treatment for hospitals in multi-campus systems under EHR incentive programs

On July 28, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule defining “meaningful use” of certified electronic health records (EHR). While the rule added some flexibility for hospitals seeking to qualify as meaningful users, we continue to have a number of concerns. For example, to our disappointment, hospital systems with multiple campuses settings will not be eligible for more than one federal incentive payments if they share a single Medicare provider number.

This portion of the rule does not reflect congressional intent to treat hospitals equitably for purposes of federal incentives; nor does it recognize the costs of implementing EHRs across different institutions within a single hospital system.

Bills designed to fix this problem were introduced in both houses of Congress just before the August recess. H.R 6072, the Electronic Health Records Incentives for Multi-Campus Hospitals Act of 2010, was introduced by Reps. Zach Space (D-OH) and Michael Burgess (R-TX); a companion bill, S. 3708, was introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). The legislation would ensure that federal incentive payments would be available to all hospitals in a multi-campus system, and that those hospitals could choose the calculation that would best meet the needs of their institutions and communities, either through additional base payments or additional per-discharge amounts.

This legislation could be considered either when Congress returns later this month or, more likely, in a lame duck session after the November 2 election. Therefore, it is critically important to get as many legislators as possible to co-sponsor these bills. Please contact your senators and representative and ask them to sign on as co-sponsors for this critical legislation.

If you need any further information, do not hesitate to contact us at 850.222.9800.