Earlier this week CMS’s acting administrator Andy Slavitt addressed those attending the 34th Annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference saying, “The meaningful use program as it has existed will now effectively be over, and replaced with something better. Since late last year we’ve been working side by side with physician organizations across many communities, including with great advocacy from the AMA and have listened to the needs and concerns of many. We’ll be putting out the details of this next stage over the next few months, but I’ll give you a couple of themes that are guiding our implementation.”
“For one, the focus will move away from rewarding providers for the use of technology and towards the outcome they achieve with their patients,” Slavitt explained. “Second, providers will be able to customize their goals so tech companies can build around the individual practice needs, not the needs of the government; technology must be user-centered and support physicians, not distract them.”
“Our role is actually much more minor,” Slavitt maintained. “Our role is simply to say, ‘for the things that you want to accomplish, if you accomplish them on behalf of our beneficiaries, you ought to get rewarded.’ So we’re not the driver; we really are there to reinforce the things physicians should want to do.”
CMS will also be looking to implement anti-data blocking regulations in an attempt to improve EHR interoperability
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