Funds Released! Money Set to Flow from HITECH

The wait is over!  Today marked the beginning of real deployment of the HITECH Act when we received details about the release of $1.2 billion dollars in direct funding for Health Information Technology (HIT) and Health Information Exchange (HIE) programs.

Funding Opportunity Announcements:

• HIT Extension Program (Health IT Resource Centers): The government will provide $598 million in fiscal year 2010 to support the creation of 70 HIT Regional Extension Centers, with an average award of $8.5 million. The award sizes can range from $1 - $30 million over four years.
• State HIE Program (competitive state grants to build HIE infrastructure): The government will provide $564 million to support state-level planning and implementation projects to advance health information exchange across the country. The award sizes can range from $4 - $40 million over four years.

Over the next few years, the HITECH / ARRA legislation will pump many billions of dollars into the effort to accelerate the rate of adoption and meaningful use of Electronic Health Records, and this is a very sizeable first step!

The definition of Meaningful Use will be a critical rule that affects all physicians and other providers intending to file for the incentives available for using an EHR.  The original legislation was vague in what Meaningful Use means, addressing only the need to use a certified EHR product to connect to other healthcare professionals and submit quality reports on clinical measures.  However, on Friday, August 14th, we moved one step closer to clarification when the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) officially approved their recommendations for the definition of Meaningful Use and announced they will send those to the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

CMS has now begun drafting the official rule related to Meaningful Use, as well as others further clarifying information related to the timing & distribution mechanism for the incentive payments, and CMS will issue the first draft of these rules in mid-to-late December of this year.

At that point there will be a public comment period during which you, as providers impacted by the rules, will have an opportunity to provide feedback on the objectives and measures associated with all of the released rules.

While this means the final rules may not be released until Spring, Allscripts' active voice in the drafting process, on-site presence at the critical meetings, and ongoing relationships within Congress and the White House have given us a good sense of where the final rules will likely go, and our Solutions Management and Development departments have already begun the process of preparing our products for the rulings.  This ensures that clients using one of our EHRs or preparing to implement are ready to collect the incentive payments at the earliest possible date.

credit: Allscripts