Electronic Medical Record EMR Incentives
The following summarizes the federal MU incentives, available to eligible providers, for the use of an Electronic Medical Record system. With meaningful use of the federally certified Patagonia Health EMR system, each eligible provider can receive $18,000 for the first year of EMR usage. Over the next 5 years, each eligible provider can receive a total of $44,000 (Medicare) or $63,750 (Medicaid) EMR incentives. The federal incentives are paid out at a larger amount in the first year of EMR adoption and then lesser amounts over the next four years. In fact, starting 2015, providers who do not use an EMR will incur penalties.

Eligible providers interested in attesting for the incentives are able to select any EMR system as long as it is federally certified for meaningful use. By selecting Patagonia health's EMR system a single eligible provider could receive $18,000 for the first year of install while only having to incur EMR costs of $4,500.  Note incentives are for EMR system only and thus a provider does not need to change existing practice management system. To see how you can pocket $15,000 this year alone, Contact us.

For a physician to receive these federal EMR incentives, the following are major considerations:

• EMR meeting Meaningful Use requirements (EMR vendor responsibility):
  To be eligible for incentives, a provider must use an Electronic Medical Record EMR software meeting federal requirements for ARRA defined Meaningful Use. Each provider must comply with 15 Core requirements, another 5 requirements to be selected from a menu of 10 and 6 total clinical quality measures. Patagonia Health EMR already meets 100% of these requirements and is certified for receiving EMR incentives, (see certificate above).
• Meaningful Use Certified EMR (EMR vendor responsibility):
  The EMR being used needs to be certified by a federally Authorized Testing & Certification Body ATCB. To spur competition and keep EMR prices low, federal authorities have approved a number of ATCB's. (Previously, there was only CCHIT and it is felt that this resulted in very expensive and complex EMR's for providers. (Note-that the old CCHIT certified EMRs are now totally irrelevant). Patagonia Health's complete EMR version 3.0 has been certified by the Drummond Group (an ATCB) for eligible providers to receive EMR incentives.
• Use of an EMR (Practice staff responsibility):
  Federal agencies wish to encourage the use of EMR (and not just a purchase!). Each eligible provider is required to use the EMR to perform certain functions such as electronic prescription, viewing Lab results, etc. Patagonia Health's EMR has taken out the complexity of Meaningful Use compliance, for provider practices and agencies, by incorporating MU requirements into normal provider workflows. In addition, Patagonia Health EMR provides an easy to use dashboard, for practices and agencies, to track their progress towards MU compliance. Patagonia Health has already started working with their customers to transition the practices to receive the first installments of their incentives. Patagonia Health, through our personal and individualized service, is assisting practices to transition to MU compliance and receive stimulus incentives.
• How a physician does get paid incentive incentives (by CMS): Reporting Period:
  The process for getting the MU incentives has been detailed on the CMS website.  In 2012, a practice has to meaningfully use the EMR for only 90 consecutive days to get the $18,000. Patagonia Health provides the needed reports and all a provider/agency need do is self attest the use of EMR. CMS has committed to provide incentives in a short time once an application has been received. If a practice sees 5-6 Medicare patients per week, they will qualify for the maximum incentives. Patagonia Health's team is knowledgeable and is committed to working with their customers to make sure practices qualify and receive their due incentives.
  To view complete and official rules for EMR incentives click this link to the CMS official website: www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/