By Jose Lopez, Senior Consultant, The Verden Group

In my recent blog on the proposed changes to Meaningful Use 2 requirements CMS recognized the barriers providers were facing in meeting the Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements, and proposed a rule to simplify the Measures and Objectives for 2015 and beyond. CMS clearly heard the complaints from providers that meeting the measures were creating workflow issues. The Verden Group applauds these changes and hope they are approved in their entirety.

Let’s look forward now to what lies beyond meeting the revised Stage 2 requirements in 2015 and 2016, to Stage 3. Following a proposed “optional” year in 2017, all providers will report on the same streamlined definition of Meaningful Use at the Stage 3 level in 2018, regardless of prior participation.

CMS has come out with 8 tentative advanced use objectives for Stage 3 designed to align with national healthcare quality improvement efforts, and to promote interoperability and health information exchange which will focus on the triple aim of reducing costs, improving access and improving quality:

1. Protect electronic health information
2. e-Prescribing
3. Clinical decision support
4. Computerized provider order entry
5. Patient electronic access to their data
6. Coordination of care through patient engagement
7. Health information exchange
8. Public health reporting

The specific measures for each objective have yet to be defined but if you think the objectives look like Stage 2, then you would be correct. And as with Stage 2, the most challenging objectives appear to be those where the provider does not have direct control over their outcomes: patient engagement (patient use of portals and e-messaging), health information exchange (by states or other entities), and public health reporting (by states or other entities).

While CMS came under fire in 2014 following the fallout of providers being unable to meet Stage 2 requirements, it is vital that practices continue to advance their use of electronic health information. As Medicare and private payers continue their evolution from fee-for-service to pay-for-performance, data is being used to report on quality outcomes and to differentiate high performing practices to patients.

In closing, it is crucial that providers and provider associations provide feedback when CMS proposes rules for Stage 3 to ensure the data being required isn’t arbitrary (as was the case with Stage 2), but that it meets the intent of the HITECH Act to begin with: reducing costs, improving access, and improving quality.

In our next blog on Meaningful Use, we’ll discuss proper Meaningful Use Attestation documentation and the ugly truth no one wants to hear: CMS plans to audit one in every 20 meaningful use attesters.