The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) extension of attestation deadlines for the Medicare Meaningful Use Incentive Program for the 2013 fiscal year gives providers which may have difficulty with the attestation process another chance to obtain their 2013 incentive dollars and avoid a 1 percent Medicare payment reduction in 2015.
So says Thomas Grove, a principal at Phoenix Health Systems, who provides IT project leadership and consulting services, including systems implementation and compliance-related projects such as ICD-10, HIPAA, and Meaningful Use.
Writing in the Phoneix Health healthcare IT blog, he explained that physicians attesting for 2013 were required to demonstrate meaningful use by December 31, 2013, and will now have until March 31, 2014 to submit their attestations instead of February 28.
“Hospitals attesting for 2013 were required to demonstrate meaningful use by September 30, 2013, and required to attest by November 30,” he said. “Hospitals who successfully demonstrated meaningful use, but were not able to attest will receive another chance to attest, but must contact CMS by March 15 in order to do so.
“To clarify, this extension does not give providers any additional opportunity to demonstrate and measure meaningful use. It simply provides another chance for providers who may have difficulty with the attestation process to obtain their 2013 incentive dollars and avoid a 1 percent Medicare payment reduction in 2015.”
He added that it is important to note that these extensions apply to the Medicare incentive program only. Attestation deadlines for the Medicaid incentive program are unchanged.
Meaningful Use, delay, providers, CMS
