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The Economic Stimulus Bill
How It Relates To Healthcare Providers
The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 was signed into law on February 17, 2009 by President Barack Obama. With close to $21 Billion Dollars allocated with incentives to assist providers in adopting Electronic Health Records (EHR). Are you aware of the provisions in the Act and how they affect the Healthcare Industry?
One of the major incentives of the Act is that early EHR adaptors will receive the most benefits since 70% of the reimbursements are available during the initial two (2) years. The legislation does have a specific timeline with the funds becoming available for physicians on January 1, 2011 and hospitals October 1, 2010. The funds range from $44,000-$64,000 per physician and $2-$8 million per hospital.
The law states that a physician must purchase a “certified” Electronic Health Record by 2015 and demonstrate a “meaningful use” of the software. If no EHR is in place by 2015 the physician or hospital will be penalized by a decrease in reimbursement of their Medicare or Medicaid rates. Currently terms like “certified” and “meaningful use” and other specifics of the Act have yet to be defined but will be written by the end of the year. For a more in-depth summary of the ARRA visit the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) website which offers a comprehensive look at the provisions of the Act including a payment schedule for eligible professionals, http://www.himss.org/content/files/HIMSSSummaryOfARRA.pdf
With 15 years of experience in the healthcare field MedEZ™ has witnessed first-hand the importance of providing and implementing credible solutions for the populace and we are firmly committed to the universal standardization of information exchange within the industry. That said we are closely monitoring activity surrounding the Act to help provide our clients and the healthcare community with the latest information and tools to maximize their level of funding.
In the interim, MedEZ will continue to ensure the highest quality of our software and prove ourselves as an industry leader in this historic healthcare move forward. MedEZ has spent much time perfecting and designing electronic health records software. Our MedEZ-EHR was custom designed for our clients with a sharp focus on compliance. Whether it’s your employees or patient documents you’re able to eliminate lost paper files, retrieve medical records at the push of a button, attach all records to a single file, recover records any place any time, and create a HIPPA-compliant paperless environment.
For more information on how to become a part of the family of the Doctors, CMHCs, CORFs, ORFs, Hospitals, IPFs and IRFs around the nation using MedEZ™, please contact us at info@medez.com or call toll free:877-AT-MEDEZ (877-286-3339).