The Office of the National Coordinator posted a set of frequently asked questions to help health care providers understand and meet requirements for the meaningful use rule. The 20 questions and answers cover topics ranging from reporting clinical quality measures to certification of electronic health records (EHRs).
Most of the questions address scenarios in which providers already use EHRs or modules to report data and what steps providers need to take to ensure they meet meaningful use.
In one question, a vendor asks whether it needs to seek testing and certification for an EHR module it wants to market when the complete EHR has already been certified. The answer is yes, the module also needs to be certified.
A question asks whether certification is necessary for a data warehouse from which a provider wants to submit quality reporting data originating from an EHR. The answer is yes.
Another question posed asks whether a provider could seek certification for an earlier version of an EHR for which its vendor was not going to pursue certification. ONC said yes but noted among other things that the costs of certification would be borne by the provider in that case.
CMS, which released the meaningful use final rule in July, has said it will open registration for the incentive program in January. First payments to eligible physicians and hospitals could go out as early as May 2011.
To begin receiving payments, healthcare providers must demonstrated meaningful use of certified EHRs for 90 days.
