When it comes to all of the new government regulations surrounding healthcare, your practice is constantly being hit with changes to processes and rules. It's hard to keep up with all of the updates, and it takes time away from the time that you want to be spending with patients, not running over the latest Meaningful Use criteria rules and regulations.

Recently, there have been changes made to The Meaningful Use Incentive Program. As you know, these changes can get pretty technical, so if you want all of the details you should check out this document, otherwise, we're going to try and sum it up for you. The new Meaningful Use rule ultimiately gives more flexibility to providers who are unable to fully implement a 2014 Certified EHR software for a reporting period in 2014, and the start of Stage 3 has been pushed to 2017 at the earliest.

Recent Changes Affecting Meaningful Use Criteria for ODs

Because so many eligible professionals were unable to implement a 2014 certified EHR in 2014 due to vendor's not being able to provide proper software, updates, or training, the rules have been changed so that eligible professionals have more flexibility to use both 2011 and 2014 Certified EHR systems to attest to Meaningful Use this year. We've broken down 5 scenarios that you might find yourself in:

And as an additional reminder, we've updated the participation timeline below so you can find out how long you will be attesting to each stage, and how much money you could potentially earn! 2014 is still the last year that providers can attest for the first time with the Incentive Program. Even if you missed the July 1, 2014 deadline to register for the Incentive Program you can still attest in the final quarter of 2014 (October 1 - December 31). Attesting in this final quarter makes you eligible for the max payment of $12,000, but it doesn't exempt you from the 1% penalty in 2015 towards your Medicare reimbursements. If 2015 is your first year attesting you will not receive any incentive payments, but you'll likely avoid penalties in 2016.

If you want more updates on the latest Meaningful Use changes, stay tuned to the blog!