EHR Incentive

In 2009 the United States Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) economic stimulus package. Title IV of the ARRA is "The HITECH Act", which offers qualifying doctors the ability to receive some of the $22.6 billion dollars allotted to upgrading medical IT systems to "electronic" health records.

In order to qualify to receive EHR stimulus money, doctors are requires to use an EMR system that is certified by demonstrating "meaningful use".

• Doctors are eligible to receive up to $63,750, divided over 6 years (2011 - 2016).
• Medicare however has a maximum amount of $44,000 over 5 years period.

Important: Beginning in 2015 doctors and hospitals who have not adopted a qualifying electronic medical records system will be subject to fees and penalties. Doctors who do not participate in a qualifying EMR system by 2015 will be incur fees totaling 1% of the Medicare payments received, and fees increase up to 3% over the subsequent three years.

Resources:

Table: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Main: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid