Meaningful Use

Meaningful use involves leveraging (MU certified) Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology to achieve several crucial objectives:

1. Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities.
2. Engage patients and their families actively.
3. Enhance care coordination, population health, and public health initiatives.
4. Maintain the privacy and security of patient health information.

The Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs offer financial incentives to encourage the meaningful use of certified EHR technology. To qualify for an EHR incentive payment, providers must demonstrate meaningful use by meeting specific measurement thresholds. These criteria range from recording patient information as structured data to exchanging summary care records. CMS has set these thresholds for eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals.

The EHR Incentive Programs consist of three stages with increasing requirements. Providers start by meeting Stage 1 requirements for a 90-day period in their first year of meaningful use and a full year in their second year. Subsequently, providers progress to meet Stage 2 requirements for two full years. CMS has recently introduced a proposed rule for Stage 3, emphasizing advanced EHR technology use to promote health information exchange and improved patient outcomes.

Eligible professionals participate in the program on a calendar year basis, while eligible hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) follow the Federal fiscal year. The proposed Stage 3 rule suggests changing the EHR reporting period, aligning all providers under a full calendar year timeline.