Practice Management Alert

Question: What do I need to know about the MyHealthEData initiative recently announced by the Trump Administration?

North Dakota subscriber

Answer: Technology eases many aspects of the documentation, billing, and prescriptions necessary in our health care system. President Trump's Administration seems to believe that the information flow between providers and patients is hampered by current regulations. The new MyHealthEData initiative is one Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) effort to deregulate that flow.

CMS announced that it plans to overhaul the current Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs, which is currently tied to Medicare reimbursement and designed to improve patient's access to their personal health information. The overhaul will refocus the programs "on interoperability and to reduce the time and cost required of providers to comply with the programs' requirements," according to a CMS press release.

Here's some important information, CMS Administrator Seema Verma's announcement at HIMSS. Initiatives outlined in the fact sheet aim to:

• "Make reporting quality measures easier and more affordable by spotlighting interoperability in a "streamlined" renovation of the Medicare EHR Incentive Program for hospitals and the Quality Payment Program's (QPP) Advancing Care Information (ACI) for eligible clinicians.
• "Offer QPP measures that promote the efficient sharing of data between patients and providers.
• "Stop patient information blocking with new reporting requirements for hospitals and physicians.
• "Require practices to update their Certified EHR Technology (CEHRT) to the 2015 editions, which include better application programming interfaces (APIs), by 2019.
• "Pinpoint the exact patient information mandated to be delivered to the patient electronically upon discharge.
• "Streamline policies regarding evaluation and management (E/M) codes 'to modernize documentation requirements and reduce clinician burden' in coordination with stakeholder feedback.
• "Rework systems to cut down duplicate testing issues."

Resource: To read the new CMS guidance on interopera­bility initiatives in greater detail, visit the CMS fact sheet at www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2018-Fact-sheets-items/2018-03-06.html.