The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently updated two FAQs that provide information on: 1) hospital-based eligible professionals’ eligibility to receive incentive payments from the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, and 2) eligible hospitals’ requirements for meeting the specialized registry objective. Please review the updated information below.
FAQ #2639 – Are physicians who practice in hospital-based ambulatory clinics eligible to receive Medicare or Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) incentive payments?
A hospital-based eligible professional (EP) is defined as an EP who furnishes 90 percent or more of his/her services in either the inpatient or emergency department of a hospital. Hospital-based EPs do not qualify for Medicare or Medicaid EHR incentive payments.
If you are a new EP and need to determine your hospital-based status, contact the EHR information center at (888)734-6433 and choose option 4 in the interactive voice response system (IVR). You will need your National Provider Identifier (NPI) and the last 5 digits of your Tax Identification Number (TIN). If you are an existing EP, review and resubmit your registration on the Registration & Attestation website to determine your hospital based status.
FAQ #14117 – What steps do eligible hospitals need to take to meet the specialized registry objective? Is it different from EPs?
For an eligible hospital, the process is the same as for an EP. However, we note that eligible hospitals do not need to explore every specialty society with which their hospital-based specialists may be affiliated. The hospital may simply check with the jurisdiction and any such organization with which it is an affiliate, if no such organization exists, and if their jurisdiction has no registry, they may simply exclude from the measure.
For More Information
Visit the CMS website to review the full list of frequently asked questions.