PortalPlus Can Help You Meet Meaningful Use

Omedix is certified by the Drummond Group for the Timely Access 170.304(g) measure.  In conjunction with a “complete EHR” or the appropriate set of “EHR Modules,” PortalPlus will help your organization meet Meaningful Use requirements.

What Is Meaningful Use?

As part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) of 2009, several billion dollars of funding was allocated to encourage providers and hospitals to adopt electronic health record technology. The original wording in the act stated that if the following requirement is met:

“The eligible professional demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Secretary…that…the professional is using certified EHR technology in a meaningful manner…”

then providers who accept Medicare (or “eligible professionals”) would be eligible to receive up to $44,000 over a 4-year period. In September 2010, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized what it meant to “use certified EHR technology in a meaningful manner” or to achieve Meaningful Use.

Two Essential Requirements

Ultimately, your practice must complete two essential requirements:

  1. You must purchase “certified technology” for all Meaningful Use measures
  2. You must demonstrate achievement of all 10 “core set” and 5 of the 10 “menu set” Meaningful Use measures

Certified Technology Explained

Each vendor chooses to certify on some or all of the Meaningful Use measures. An EHR vendor is likely to certify their software on all measures — offering the convenience of meeting all requirements from a single vendor. In practice, though, vendors have often rushed to meet key functionality and the actual execution of this functionality can be clumsy and labor-intensive for the practice. For this reason, companies like Omedix certify software not for every Meaningful Use measure but only for those measures that relate to their software.

In December 2010, the Office of the National Coordinator clarified that to meet Meaningful Use, you must purchase certified technology for all 15 core set measures and all 10 menu set measures (View the original FAQ). Note that you need only demonstrate 5 of the 10 Menu Set measures, meaning you are not required to deploy some of the software you have purchased.

What It Means to Demonstrate a Measure

Each Meaningful Use measure has an objective (e.g. “Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information”) and a way of measuring that you have substantially achieved that objective (“More than 50% of all patients who request an electronic copy of their health information are provided it within 3 business days”). It is the achievement of this measure that can sometimes be challenging for clinics, as these require new workflows and often create additional work. Ultimately, your clinic must generate a report proving that you have met each measure.

You must demonstrate all 10 core set measures and just 5 of the 10 menu set measures.

Meaningful Use and the Patient Portal

Of the 25 Meaninginful Use measures, one measure stands out as requiring a patient portal:

Timely Access – Menu Set – 170.304(g)

OBJECTIVE:
Provide patients with timely electronic access to their health information (including lab results, problem list, medication lists, medication allergies) within four business days of the information being available to the EP.

MEASURE:
More than 10% of all unique patients seen by the EP are provided timely (available to the patient within four business days of being updated in the certified EHR technology) electronic access to their health information subject to the EP’s discretion to withhold certain information

To access their medical record online, patients need a secure online portal to view their records. In practice, this is a personal health record, which is part of the patient portal. Omedix PortalPlus will help you achieve the “Timely Access” Meaningful Use measure.

Other Meaningful Use measures can be met without a patient portal, but this often demands a new labor-intensive workflow for the clinic. For example, “Electronic Copy of Health Information” (Core Set – 170.304(f)) requires that you issue your patient an electronic copy of their medical record within 3 business days of their requesting it. It is possible to deliver this record without a patient portal using a CD-R or USB Flash Drive, but this requires generating the medical record file, saving it to a portable device, shipping the device, and documenting this as complete. By contrast, a patient portal enables the patient to simply log in and download her record.