What Is Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are about incentive payments. That's right. If you're an eligible provider (EP) and give care to Medicaid and Medicare patients, you could get paid extra money if you adopt electronic health records (EHR) systems in your practice, healthcare organization, or facility. But there's a catch: The EHRs must meet certain standards set forth by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Care (HITECH) Act under the law enacted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). As of 2011, eligible providers (EP) can receive up to $44,000 over five years for incentive payments if they demonstrate upgrades to existing EHR systems, EHR system implementations or plans for implementation. To receive the maximum incentive payments, EHR systems should be developed sooner rather than later. Incentive payments can be used to hire an outside vendor for EHR implementation or new or additional in-house IT staff. Public universities and community colleges are also granted incentive payments to educate new IT staff through the Program Assistance for University-Based Training (UBT). It's not too late! Many options are available if you're still looking for ways to improve your practice's EHR system. For example, $44,000 over five years is a significant amount - think of what you could do with that much! You could hire an outside vendor to implement your new EHR system or use the funds as a grant and train your existing staff on how to implement it themselves. If you're looking for grants specifically targeted toward university-based training programs, look no further than UBT! The deadline for EHR implementation is 2015, but many believe this deadline will need to be extended. The healthcare industry is buzzing with rumors that hospitals and physicians' offices must extend the electronic health record (EHR) implementation deadline. The deadline was initially set at the end of 2014, but many have been caught off guard by the complexity of the process and are struggling to meet it.