Qualify for Medicare Incentives with Medisoft

Is your practice set to benefit from the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare IT incentives? If you’re making meaningful use of one of many Medisoft EMR products, you could qualify to receive up to $44,000 Medicare incentives of $64,000 Medicaid incentives, and an additional $4,400 in Medicare incentives if you practice in a rural or underserved area. Those are the maximum allowable incentives under the Meaningful Use healthcare IT programs. A physician may qualify for one program or the other, but not for both. Does your practice qualify for participation?

Eligible Professionals for Healthcare Incentives

The incentive programs are intended to encourage adoption of electronic patient records software such as Medisoft Clinical and Medisoft EMR as well as to help establish meaningful use standards for medical records software, particularly among practices that bill Medicare and Medicaid. Thus, eligible professionals for the Medicare HIT program include physicians as they are defined in the Social Security Act. They include doctors of medicine or osteopathy, dentists, surgeons, podiatrists, optometrists and chiropractors. The Medicaid HIT program also includes certified nurse-midwives, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Generally, to receive payments under either program, your practice must not be hospital-based and a specific percentage of your patients must be eligible for the program under which you are applying to receive incentives. You also must demonstrate meaningful use of a certified electronic patient records or EMR solution, such as several provided by McKesson Medisot.

What Is Meaningful Use of Medisoft EMR?

The definitions for “meaningful use” are very flexible and fluid because part of the intention is to encourage innovation and integration in the use of EMR products like Medisoft. Essentially, in order to qualify for incentive payments, you must demonstrate to the satisfaction of the HHS Secretary that your office is using the certified EMR in a meaningful manner. Some of those uses may include:

-          Electronic prescribing

-          Exchange of Information

-          Promoting coordination of care among primary care physician and specialists

-          Reporting of quality and outcome measures using the EMR

The first payments for meaningful use adoption were made in early 2011, and included an additional incentive for early adopters. While the early adopter incentives are no longer available, offices can still register and qualify for EMR incentives for 2013. You can apply to participate before you purchase and install Medisoft or other qualifying EMR.

If your practice bills Medicaid or Medicare, it makes sense to adopt electronic patient record software such as Medisoft Clinical now and reap some additional benefit from it. Beginning in 2015, office-based practices that have not adopted an EMR may find their Medicare reimbursements reduced by 1 percent in 2015, 2 percent in 2016 and 3 percent in 2017. Why wait and be penalized when you can adopt early and get paid?