The following is email communication from CMS.
If you are an eligible professional participating in the Medicare or Medicaid EHR Incentive Program and are planning to meet one of the Stage 2 public health measures, the deadline to register your intent to initiate ongoing submission with your public health agency (PHA), program, or other body to whom the information will be submitted is within 60 days of the start of your EHR reporting period. For 2015, this deadline for eligible professionals is March 1, 2015**.
Eligible professionals that need to register their intent for a public health objective, but fail to register their intent by this deadline will not meet the measure.
Satisfying Public Health Measure Requirements
As a reminder a public health measure can be satisfied by meeting any one of the following criteria:
- Ongoing submission was already achieved for an EHR reporting period in a prior year and continues throughout the current EHR reporting period.
- Registration with the PHA or other body to whom the information is being submitted of intent to initiate ongoing submission was made by the deadline (within 60 days of the start of the EHR reporting period) and ongoing submission was achieved.
- Registration of intent to initiate ongoing submission was made by the deadline and the EP or hospital is still engaged in testing and validation of ongoing electronic submission.
- Registration of intent to initiate ongoing submission was made by the deadline and the EP or hospital is awaiting invitation to begin testing and validation.
Resources
Please refer to the CMS Stage 2 Eligible Professional Specification Sheets for more information on the public health objectives.
For information and instructions on registering intent to initiate ongoing submission for a public health objective, please check with your public health agency, program, or other body to whom the information will be submitted.
** CMS recently (1/29/2015) announced its intent to engage in rulemaking for EHR Incentive Programs changes for 2015. As part of the changes, CMS is considering shortening the 2015 reporting period to 90 days, which if adopted through the rulemaking process, would make March 1, 2015 the deadline for the first EP 90-day reporting period. There would be additional deadlines corresponding to subsequent 90-day reporting periods in 2015.