Contributor: David P. Rimi

With all the interest in the government’s ARRA program, we have continued to keep up with the latest information and have accumulated information on the subject. The purposes of this letter it to inform you about the ARRA incentives, your options and the path we have decided to follow. After reviewing the following we will meet with you to discuss the path you wish to follow.

 

First I will share what I have found about the ARRA program.

 

 Here's How it Works:

There are two ways you can qualify for the incentive. Qualified providers can qualify under either incentive, but not both. You can qualify either under Medicare or Medicaid. Physicians qualifying under the Medicare portion can receive up to $44,000 and those qualifying under the Medicaid incentive can qualify for up to $64,000. You can receive your incentive payments starting in January of 2011. Physicians who do not implement EHR technology by 2015 will suffer from a 1% reduction in Medicare Payments (reductions will continue to increase after 2015 up to 5%).

 

Qualifying Under the Medicare Provision:

Physicians qualifying under the Medicare provision are eligible for up to $44,000. The total amount that you receive is based on how early you adopt and your Medicare Part B billings. (You must submit Medicare Part B claims to qualify.) You will receive the lesser amount of either 75% of your Medicare Part B charges or $44,000 over a five year period from 2011 to 2015. You can also qualify for an early adopter incentive of $3,000 (if you qualify for either 2011 or 2012.) Remember, to receive your maximum payment, you must start now.

MAXIMUM incentives (including $3,000 bonus) will be paid as follows:

·     $18,000 for the 1st year

·     $12,000 for the 2nd year

·     $8,000 for the 3rd year

·     $4,000 for the 4th year

·     $2,000 for the 5th year

Qualifying Under the Medicaid Provision

Providers qualifying under Medicaid are eligible for up to $63,750 over six years. Your payment is calculated as 85% of the EHR cost (up to $25,000 for the first year), and 85% of annual cost (up to $10,000) over the following five years. To qualify for the Medicaid provision, at least 30% of your cases must be attributable to Medicaid. For pediatricians, the minimum percentage of Medicaid patients is reduced to 20%. However, office-based pediatricians are only eligible to receive up to two thirds of the maximum payment.

 

 

How you Qualify for the Incentive Payment:

The stimulus package passed for the year 2009 pumps $19 billion into the medical industry to help implement technology that makes health care safer and more connected. Those who prove meaningful use of Electronic Health Records can receive an incentive reimbursement of up to $64,000 over six years. Remember, 70% of the incentive comes within the first two years.

 

The definition of "meaningful use" includes:

·     Use EMR software at point of care

·     Prescribe electronically

·     Choose an EMR that ensures interoperability or data sharing

·     Use an EMR capable of clinical reporting

2011 qualification criteria also includes:

·     At least one clinical decision support rule relevant to a specialty or a high clinical priority

·     Electronic claim submission to payors

·     Electronically check insurance eligibility (when possible)

·     Provide patients with timely electronic access to their health information;

·     Provide patients, upon request, with an electronic copy of their discharge instructions and procedures at the time of discharge; and

·     Require the capability to exchange health information where possible in 2011, with participation in a national health information exchange by 2015

*By 2013, the criteria will extend to include the ability to provide patients with access to their personal health records populated in real time.

 

Medinotes merged with Eclipsys a few years ago. Eclipsys is major player in the EHR field and offers PeakPractice an EHR/PMS system. It is both a locally and web based system. We will be offering an interface to allow our Ltec/Medisoft clients to continue using them if they wish.

The following is the information we received from Medinotes on what they plan to do on the ARRA subject;

Medinotes  general strategic roadmap  

         PeakPractice is the go forward solution for all CCHIT certification and ARRA stimulus incentives.  MediNotes e will still be supported through 2015 for those clinics that don’t want to switch over right now and don’t qualify for any ARRA stimulus.

         Current MediNotes clients that are current on maintenance can upgrade to PeakPractice at no cost for licenses, this is called their “Like for Like” program which basically says, if you have a current MediNotes e license, you have a current PeakPractice EMR license for free.  The clinic would only have to pay for PeakPractice maintenance*, SQL**, and any training/implementation services to get PeakPractice up and running.  If the clinic wants to move to the full suite, they would have to pay for the PM portion of PeakPractice, but again, as long as they’re current on their MediNotes e maintenance, the already own the PeakPractice EMR licenses

         “Meaningful Use” is still being defined for ARRA, but we do know that the timeframe for ARRA has been pushed out some.  Clinics now have more time to get a certified EHR system implemented to qualify for the first ARRA payment.  Now, clinics just have to be implemented and be able to show “meaningful use” by 1/1/2012 to get the first ARRA payment.  This gives our current MediNotes e clients almost 2 years to get implemented with PeakPractice to qualify for the first ARRA payment.  We will see a bottle neck with order fulfillment and implementation, so we are encouraging clients that need/want to upgrade to PeakPractice should start the process now.

         In terms of a migration path, there will be 2.  1st at the end of this year, we will be offering a migration program that brings over all patient data from MediNotes e to PeakPractice in a text note format.  It will also bring over templates, with limited objects.  2nd in Q2, we will have a full migration path with patient data, and more objects from the templates will come over

 *Peak Practice Maintenance is 20% of each license including “eprescribe”.

 **MS SQL - $2,800 (only for local hosting)

 

With the above in mind and the thought that some or all of our clients may elect to move to the PeakPractice, we have decided to partner with Automed. We are doing this is in order to provide enhanced support and training services. Automed is certified sales, training and support for PeakPractice and Medinotes, the first company in the united states to attain this acheivement and perhaps the only one currently in operation. We have worked closely with Automed for a few years.

 

We have created a program with Automed that will offer our clients the best opportunity to move forward. This program involves changing your medinotes support from being directly with Medinotes to us. Since we have been your main conduit to Medinotes, this has little or no impact for you. The only condition is that you must be on the program by Dec 8th, 2009 and Medinotes e 2010 maintenance must be paid as a prerequisite.

 

As part of the program you will have Free access to our tutorial website for program duration. There is a step-up program membership fee of  399.00 thru 12/09, then its $899.00 and Security setup fee (SSL and dedicated secure port) onetime 500.00 fee

 

Peak practice maintenance due beginning December of  2010 or whenever your eprescribe (whichever is earlier) -due then it is 20% of retail cost and a credit will be issued for medinotes e maintenance paid. PeakPractice’s support fee includes your eprescribe fee.

 

Since PeakPractice is such a robust system that requires enhanced technical abilities, we have created with Automed the ability to offer hosting of your system for $129/month for the 1st provider. This eliminates the need to acquire anything in order to use PeakPractice.

 

I have included some preliminary information on PeakPractice.

 

Why Choose Peak Practice as Your EMR Software?

·     Publicly traded company with long history in EMR market

·     Built on Microsoft .NET Technology

·     Single Application-Patient Portal, Patient Kiosk, EMR/PM, Inventory Management.

·     PQRI Automation

·     2008 CCHIT Certification for Eclipsys Peak Practice V.1093

·     Health Maintenance Reminders triggered to Scheduling

·     Electronic prescribing - Sure Scripts integration

·     Extensive Revenue Cycle Management Tasks

·     Customized Implementation and education plan


Peak Practice Saves on Upgrades and Third Party Software

With Peak Practice's ASP.net interface, there are no expensive hardware upgrades and easy software upgrades. Plus, it gives you access from anywhere, anytime. Peak Practice is truly a full suite, meaning that there is no costly third party software necessary to optimize your solution. It is already bundled with an approved ePrescribing solution. (In addition to the EMR stimulus package, there is also an additional 2% you can get with ePrescriptions).

 

Peak Practice Saves Time

Peak Practice includes a Patient Portal and Patient Kiosk which reduces the amount of data entry required by your front desk staff and gives you more time to spend taking care of your patients. With the patient portal and kiosk, patients can electronically enter their own medical history, view their existing appointments or see available appointments and schedule a new appointment for themselves. All of this greatly reduces the amount of time your staff has to spend on phone calls.

Peak Practice can automate even the busiest medical practice with features including:

·     Patient and physician portal tools

·     Delivery via our hosted service option (application service provider ASP), or on site in your environment

·     Scheduling Dashboard that adapts to your workflow

·     Intuitive patient care tools allowing for point of care documentation

·     Instant access to patient information

 

Eclipsys Peak Practice has been designed to cater to the special needs of your practice. Software optimization

includes:

  • High patient load means documenting quickly is very important

  • PSA tracking to ensure patients are getting regular PSA's and to follow up on abnormal test results

  • Lab integration and result reading for high volume of urinalyses

  • Ease of referring physician notes and test results accommodate the many incoming referrals

 

 

The following is a link to a demo;

 

http://www.eclipsys.com/Collateral/Flash/English-US/peakpractice-demo.html


For more information please call AutoMED @ 866-797-3134