CHIME Recommends 90-Day Reporting Window for MU Stage 2

In comments submitted earlier this week, CHIME is calling for the creation of a 90-day reporting period for the first payment year of Stage 2 Meaningful Use. In comments filed with both CMS and ONC, CHIME also identified concerns related to CMS’ varying approach to clinical quality measures (CQMs) and provided recommendations on all 42 proposed objectives for Eligible Professionals, Eligible Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals.

CHIME is asking that EPs, EHs and CAHs are all granted a continuous 90-day EHR reporting period for their first payment year in Stage 2, mimicking the approach used in Stage 1.“We felt the approach taken in Stage 1 gave providers much-needed time to make sure the correct fields were populating and accurate Meaningful Use reports were being produced. We think a similar approach is needed for Stage 2 and beyond,” said Pam McNutt, senior vice president and CIO at Methodist Health System and a member of CHIME’s Policy Steering Committee. “By giving providers flexibility through a 90-day reporting window, CMS can ensure that more Stage 1 Meaningful Users will become Stage 2 Meaningful Users.”

In the letters to CMS and ONC, CHIME commented on the challenges involved with clinical quality measures, stating that “the accurate reporting of quality measures is one of the most daunting challenges faced by providers today. Through our experiences with Stage 1, we found that although EHR products were able to automatically produce CQM reports, the data was inaccurate and largely incomparable across different providers.”

As part of Base EHR certification, CHIME urged ONC to require certification of EHR products to all CQMs needed to meet Meaningful Use in each setting. CHIME wrote that “certification should include all CQMs for associated settings. And in order to minimize the costs of development and implementation, we recommend that ONC work with CMS to limit the total number of CQMs associated with each setting.”

To access CHIME’s comments to CMS, click here. CHIME’s letter to ONC can be found here.