If you haven’t begun the process of selecting and implementing an EHR, Meaningful Use may not be something about which to be overly concerned. The reason, you probably will not be done in time to collect the incentive money. How can I state that with such assurance? One of my clients has already implemented EHR and CPOE—already done the heavy lifting—and they will have to divert most of their IT resources from what they had planned to do just to meet the Stage 1 requirements.
If you haven’t begun your EHR implementation, there may be no rush to acquire a vendor, although the vendors will not tell you that. Rushing may lead to a bad selection. Don’t cost yourself tens of millions just to have a chance at a few. By the way, did any of the vendors with whom you are speaking mention whether their system will facilitate meeting the Stage 2 and 3 requirements? Will they put it in writing? Right now, it seems akin to the EHR vendors trying to sell cars without knowing whether the cars will need to run on gas or Hydrogen.
I think the Meaningful Use dates will be pushed back. Why? Because such a small percentage of providers will be in a position to apply for the incentive money. Washington created a multi-billion dollar lottery and they are having trouble finding anyone able to purchase tickets.
Now for those whose EHR implementation is well underway or up and running — should you try for the incentive money? That is a valid question. Just because someone is offering you a check doesn’t mean you have to take the money, especially if going after the moneu means you do not have the resources you need to complete other tasks, tasks like ICD-10. Here are some questions you ought to be able to answer prior to deciding if Meaningful Use is meaningful to you.
- For many, meeting MU will require a shift in strategic direction; you take on the MU tasks with scarce resources and in doing so sacrifice some of your other objectives
- What are those tasks, what resources will they consume
- What year is the best year for you to meet MU; 2011-2015? Remember, you have choices as to when. Is it wiser to delay by a few years in order to make sure your EHR does what you need it to do even though doing so will mean you will not collect all of the incentive money?
- Did you know you can still maximize incentive dollars if you pass MU in 2013?
- That gives you very little time to react to Stage 2 & 3 requirements
Meaningful Use is viewed by many in a binary contest — you make it or you don’t. The decision to meet Meaningful Use does not have to be binary. There is no way to collect for meeting 90 percent of the requirements. How might you financially calculate the probability of collecting all of the incentive? Let’s begin with Stage 1—the easy one.
- Calculate the maximum incentive payment you could receive
- Multiply that figure by the degree of certainty you have that your plan to meet Meaningful Use will be completed on time — a number less than 1
- Then multiply that probability by the probability you think exists for passing the audit, another number less than 1
- Calculate your cost to complete the Stage 1 requirements, and then calculate the ROI — it is not a very big number, is it? For many, the number will not even be positive.
- A negative ROI from Stage 1 makes evaluating Stage 2 & 3 calculations seem rather superficial.
Somebody within the C-suite should ask the chief financial officer why the hospital is spending twenty million dollars to have a chance a collecting fifteen million dollars. If the CFO thinks that is a good idea, maybe it is time to revisit some of the CFO’s prior decisions.
So take time to evaluate your options. The only people who will look foolish are those who don’t know what questions to ask.