Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs provide incentive payments to eligible professionals and hospitals as they adopt, implement, upgrade or demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology. The incentive programs are designed to support providers in the transition to electronic health records and to encourage the meaningful use of EHRs to improve safety, quality and efficiency in patient health care.

Eligible professionals under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program include:

• Doctor of medicine or osteopathy
• Doctor of dental surgery or dental medicine
• Doctor of podiatry
• Doctor of optometry
• Chiropractor

Eligible professionals under the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program include:

• Physicians (primarily doctors of medicine and doctors of osteopathy)
• Nurse practitioner
• Certified nurse-midwife
• Dentist
• Physician assistant who furnishes services in a Federally Qualified Health Center or Rural Health Clinic that is led by a physician assistant.

Requirement for Program Participation

To qualify for an incentive payment under the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, an eligible professional must meet one of the following criteria:

• Have a minimum 30% Medicaid patient volume *
• Have a minimum 20% Medicaid patient volume, and is a pediatrician *
• Practice predominantly in a Federally Qualified Health Center or Rural Health Center and have a minimum 30% patient volume attributable to needy individuals
* Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) patients do not count toward the Medicaid patient volume criteria.
If you are a provider that is eligible for Medicare and Medicaid Incentive Programs, you can only participate in one program.

EHR Certification ID

American Medical Software is happy to announce American Medical Software-EMR v22 and v23 is 2011/2012 compliant and was certified as a Complete EHR on December 15, 2010 by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®), an ONC-ATCB, in accordance with the applicable Eligible Provider certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The 2011/2012 criteria support the Stage 1 meaningful use measures required to qualify eligible providers and hospitals for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

For additional information please visit the official CMS website.