Providers Welcome Meaningful Use Relief

There will be no delay for ICD-10 conversion. But when CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner announced Thursday at HIMSS14 that CMS would be flexible on hardship exemptions for meaningful use requirements, it provided some of the relief healthcare providers – and the professional organizations that represent them – have been seeking.

"Such relief is vitally important for the future success of meaningful use, as ICD-10 deadlines and continued shifts in payment policies demand an ever-increasing amount of IT and workforce resources," CHIME President and CEO Russell P. Branzell and CHIME Board Chairman Randy McCleese said in statement issued after Tavenner’s keynote.

"If the expansion of the office’s EHR Hardship Exceptions provides the kind of relief the industry desperately needs, CHIME pledges to assist policymakers in every way possible," the statement continued. "Should CMS choose to define the new hardship exceptions in a way that does not address the core concerns of our industry we will continue to seek the kind of flexibility that nearly 50 national healthcare organizations communicated to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on February 21, 2014."...