On Healthcare: No Mercy on Meaningful Use

Coverage Type: 

[Commentary] It sounded promising. The HIT Policy Committee's Workgroup on Meaningful Use was taking about flexibility, about no longer forcing providers to meet all its requirements in order to get one penny of HITECH stimulus cash. Dr. Paul Tang, chairman of the workgroup and CMIO at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, said he heard the provider community's complaints about the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking's high bar and 100 percent compliance requirement, so his team was recommending a more flexible approach, one that would allow hospitals and physicians to defer a few measures to later years, while still reaping the benefits of a good-faith effort. But just when you started thinking the HITECH ship was finally on a sensible course, the old bait and switch revealed it was still heading straight towards the rocks. That's because just as it paid lip service to the concept of flexibility, the same workgroup piled on requirements HHS and ONC had left out of the NPRM, leaving providers (and journalists) who thought it was already prohibitive with their mouths agape.


On Healthcare: No Mercy on Meaningful Use