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February 4, 2009Market Watch - Recent EMR News from Practice Partner
Obama Calls for All Americans To Have EHRs Within Five Years, ihealthbeat.org, Jan 2009
President-elect Barack Obama has called for all U.S. residents to have electronic health records within five years. Obama said, “To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its costs, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized.” He added, “But it won’t just save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system.” CLICK HERE for the full article.
House Economic Stimulus Bill Allocates $20B for Health Care IT, ihealthbeat.org, Jan 2009
On Thursday, January 15th, the House Appropriations Committee released an $825 economic stimulus proposal that includes $20 billion for health IT. According to a committee report accompanying the draft of the bill, the $20 billion allocation for health IT is designed “to prevent medical mistakes, provide better care to patients and introduce cost-saving efficiencies.” CLICK HERE for the full article.
Medicare Increases PQRI Incentive Bonus for 2009
Medicare has increased the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) incentive bonus for 2009 from 1.5% to 2%. PQRI is a voluntary participation program by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that provides an incentive payment to physicians who satisfactorily report quality measures data to CMS. PQRI reporting uses CPT II and G codes to report on quality measures. PQRI reporting is easily achieved using standard Practice Partner reporting tools and codes that are built into the templates.
Those who meet the criteria for satisfactory submission of quality measures data for services provided during the reporting period (January 1, 2009 - December 31, 2009), will earn an incentive payment of 2% of their total allowed charges for Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) covered professional services. The 2009 PQRI consists of 153 quality measures and 7 measures groups. To learn more about PQRI Reporting visit: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/PQRI/.
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