In a letter submitted to CMS on March 15th, Members of Congress encouraged CMS to revise its proposed definition of meaningful use and the restrictions on the EHR incentive payments. The letter covered three topics:
1) the definition of Meaningful Use;
2) the definition of Hospital-Based Physician; and
3) the limitation on payments to Multi-Campus hospitals.
Specifically, the letter discussed the application of the meaningful use requirements for both Medicare and Medicaid and urged CMS to relax the restrictions and the broad scope of the definition. The letter recommends that CMS modify the hospital-based definition to allow incentive payments for physicians that furnish services in hospital-owned ambulatory settings by excluding those physicians from the definition of hospital-based. Lastly, the letter requests that CMS identify hospitals as discrete facilities regardless of whether the hospital is part of a multi-hospital system operating under the same Medicare provider number.
