Government & Policy

A blanket hardship exception from 2015's meaningful use reimbursement penalties passed both the House and Senate last week as part of the Patient Access and Medicare Protection Act, offering providers wider latitude for securing exemptions from possible fines.

The National Institutes of Health revealed its roster of ambitious goals for the next five years and many of them are either focused on reliant upon technologies.

The association, which represents nearly 225,000 members across the country, said the program needs to accommodate the needs of physicians and patients while focusing on promoting the interoperability of electronic health records.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology plans to ratchet up its two-year-old security offering, dubbed the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, and has put out a public call for user feedback.

Congress on Wednesday will consider legislation to allow physicians working in ambulatory surgical centers to receive the same payment incentives for meaningful use of electronic health records as doctors in other settings.

The conservative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons on Monday challenged the employer insurance of the Affordable Care Act, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a writ of certiorari in the case of Stephen F. Hotze, MD, and Braidwood Management v. Sylvia Matthews Burwell and Jacob J. Lew.

In order to 'eliminate confusion and ambiguity' in its 500-plus page 2015 Edition EHR certification criteria, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has added corrections to the Federal Register to help vendors better understand the final rule.

When nine organizations -- several of them health IT vendors -- urged Congress in a Dec. 7 letter to resist delaying Stage 3 of the Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Program, the plea came with an outline for strengthening interoperability.

Health IT Now, along with with eight other organizations, some of them health IT vendors, are calling on Congress to stay the course on Stage 3 of the Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Program.

CMS announced the first mandatory test of shared-risk, outcomes-based payment model and the first initiative to make hospitals financially-responsible for patient recovery, 90-days after a knee or hip replacement surgery; it goes into effect April 2016.