CMS lists names of EHR incentive recipients

By Mary Mosquera
08:57 AM

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has published the names, business phone numbers, and business addresses of Medicare providers that have demonstrated meaningful use of an electronic health record and received an incentive payment as of March 2012.

CMS has displayed the provider listings, which will be updated quarterly, by state.

Starting this month, CMS will post two file formats of Medicare EHR Incentive Program payment recipients’ information, according to a May 9 announcement. One format is a searchable PDF (Portable Document Format) of providers and a PDF of hospitals.

The other is a tabular downloadable CSV (Comma Separated Value) format that can be opened in many common spreadsheet programs. The CSV file can also be used to sort information about recipients, for example, by medical specialty or the state in which they practice. 

Last week, CMS said that Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payment have surpassed $5 billion to 93,650 physicians and hospitals through April 2012 in preliminary estimates.

As of March 2012, CMS has paid a total of $2.39 billion to 44,925 Medicare physicians, professionals and hospitals.

The HITECH Act required the listing of providers that received incentive payments. CMS has not posted information on group practices because incentive payments are not offered at the group practice level.

Only those physicians, professionals, and hospitals that qualify based on the meaningful use regulation's eligibility requirements, verified that they meaningfully use an EHR, and have received a Medicare incentive payment will be displayed online.

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