Pennsylvania's Office of Medical Assistance Programs (OMAP) will launch an application it hopes will streamline and secure the tracking of payments to Medicaid providers that meet criteria for financial incentives outlined in new federal meaningful use rule.

The Medical Assistance Provider Incentive Repository (MAPIR), as the application is known, will link with the state's Medicaid Management Information System, the state's central system for administering the Medicaid program.

MAPIR will also be linked to the National Level Repository (NLR), a front end currently being built by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to register all eligible providers and to guard against duplicate payments.

Mike Nardone, deputy secretary of the Office, which resides in the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, says the MAPIR will not only help his agency meet the new mandate but will ease the workload for providers and hospitals.

"Basically, the MAPIR system will be able to perform all of the activities that we envision being necessary in order to implement the Medicaid incentive program," Nardone said.

Here's how the system works: Once the NLR receives an application from an eligible provider, the information is immediately transmitted to the MAPIR system.

Department staff can then review the information and check it against provider files and the claims processing systems within the MMIS to ensure that the information is accurate and the provider's practice is made up of at least 30 percent Medicaid patients.

Providers will be able to access the MAPIR system via a Web-based portal and provide required information and attestations. And department personnel can use MAPIR to track application and decision status, attach notes and documents to provider records and generate provider correspondence.

Once a payment approval has been made, OMAP will send that information to the NLR, which will then confirm and register the payment and give the state the go-ahead to make the payment. The state MMIS will then generate a check for the provider.

MAPIR is being developed by HP Enterprise Services and is currently being provided to 15 of its state customers, the company said.

Nardone says that MAPIR will be part of the NLR's testing phase later this fall and he hopes to have the system fully online in early 2011.

"It's really just our culture here that when something new comes along, we take a look at it and figure out how to automate it and gain efficiencies," he said.