It’s official: year one is in the books for Meaningful Use. 2011 was the first year that Stage 1 attestation was possible for eligible professionals, hospitals and critical access hospitals. There were a number of organizations that partnered with us last year to get the ball rolling on the attestation process. Let’s take a closer look at the MU statistics for 2011:

• 123,921 Eligible Professionals have registered for EHR Incentives, yet only 15,255 successfully attested to meaningful use in the Medicare program.

That’s just a little over 12% of those who registered actually attested. Expect 2012 results to be quite a bit higher. This percentage doesn’t take into account EP’s who did not register for 2011, either.

• 3.077 Eligible Hospitals have registered EHR Incentives and 604 of those have successfully attested to meaningful use.

This figure is higher at almost 20% of hospitals which registered actually ended up attesting in 2011, but again this does not take into account hospitals which did register in 2011. Expect this number for hospitals to climb for 2012 as well.

• $2,533,689,145 has been paid out in Medicare and Medicaid Incentives.

2.5 billion out of the total $19.2 billion put aside for the HITECH Act has been paid out so far. That’s a relatively small slice of a very large pie. If you missed the train in 2011, attesting in 2012 still allows for the maximum reimbursement amount to be collected for the Medicare incentive program.

• 277 hospitals have received payments under both Medicare and Medicaid and of those 12 were CAHs.

Almost half of the hospitals which attested collected both Medicare and Medicaid incentives.

• 22% of eligible professionals that have been paid EHR incentives are Family Practitioners and 20% are Internal Medicine.

This is an encouraging figure in that specialists are capitalizing on the meaningful use opportunity as well.

• 41 States Medicaid programs were open for registration. Two additional States launched in January of 2012.
• More than 1500 EHR products have been certified by ONC-ATCBs.

As illustrated in a previous article, Allscripts remains the industry leader.

The 2011 Meaningful Use Statistics tell us that the majority of eligible provider and hospitals are likely planning to attest Stage 1 in 2012 if they plan on obtaining the maximum reimbursement amount under the Medicare incentive program.

As we can see, attesting in 2012 will yield the same total over a 5 year period, assuming that meaningful use is also achieved in each successive stage of attestation. This fact suggests that 2012 will be an incredibly busy year for most organizations who are striving to meet this goal.

We all already know that the carrot and stick policy is in full effect, shown by a 1% per year decrease in reimbursements should Meaningful Use not be met by 2015. Additionally, the HITECH Act authorizes CMS to further reduce the reimbursement rate beginning in 2018 if the proportion of meaningful users is less than 75% by that time.

Here at Galen, recently we’ve seen a tremendous demand for Allscripts Enterprise EHR^TM and Meaningful Use-related consulting services. Whether it is upgrading to the Meaningful Use certified version of Allscripts Enterprise EHR^TM: (v11.2), data conversions, or augmenting your staff with Allscripts subject matter experts to assist in ongoing build & implementation efforts; Galen is uniquely positioned as the perfect partner for organizations which are looking to meet their meaningful use goals.

When there is so much at stake and resources are stretched thin as it is, why choose anyone other than the industry leader to assist in accomplishing your organizational goals? Contact us for more information and let us know how we can help.