MGMA: Docs’ Road to Meaningful Use too Rough

The Englewood, Colo.-based Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) contends that the proposed EHR incentive program rule and the standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria required to prove meaningful use are overly complex.

“The rules include a number of requirements which will create significant barriers to physician efforts to achieve the designation of and prove that they are meaningful users of an EHR,” MGMA states, “including:”

• Unreasonable thresholds for some of the meaningful use criteria (i.e., computerized prescription order entry, electronic claim submission, electronic insurance eligibility verification, and others);
• Potentially difficult meaningful use attestation after the first year; and
• A requirement that physician offices provide patients and others with electronic copies of medical records.