By Healthcare Facilities Today

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed extending the period for attesting to Meaningful Use stage 2 through 2016. While some in the industry welcome the one-year extension, which will give providers and vendors more time to prepare for Meaningful Use stage 3, the associations that represent health IT professionals view the policy change as inadequate, according to an article on the Information Week Health website.

Both the College of Health Information Management Executives and the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society pressed CMS to give providers additional time to meet the Meaningful Use requirements on the front end, the article said. They want CMS to give providers between 18 months and two years to meet the requirements and still be eligible for 2014 incentives.

This flexibility is also needed, the associations say, because many hospitals have not yet received updated software and because they must deal with a number of other priorities in 2014, notably the transition to the ICD-10 coding system.

With ICD-10 compliance coming into view, with HIPAA compliance demanding renewed attention and with all the activities associated with the Affordable Care Act converging in 2014, providers are nearing a breaking point, said Russ Branzell, CHIME’s CEO, in a statement. Flexibility of the kind announced today is beneficial for Stage 3, but Stage 2 start-date flexibility is needed to ensure long-term success.

Read the article.