Before you begin this assignment, be sure you have read the ?UMUC Family Clinic Case Study?, the syllabus readings for Week 3, which discuss meaningful use and reporting requirements, and your graded work (with any feedback received) for the previous stages of this case study.

Before you begin this assignment, be sure you have read the ?UMUC Family Clinic Case Study?, the syllabus readings for Week 3, which discuss meaningful use and reporting requirements, and your graded work (with any feedback received) for the previous stages of this case study.

This assignment gives you the opportunity to learn about the regulatory requirements governing meaningful use and the financial incentives that the government offers to providers and healthcare institutions that meet meaningful use in order to improve the quality of care in the United States. It will require you to do more external research beyond the textbook. Since your textbook is older than the information on the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) website, your source of information will primarily be the CMS website. This assignment addresses the following course outcomes to enable you to:

Evaluate the organizational environment in the health care industry to recognize how technology solutions enable strategic outcomes
Evaluate technology solutions in the health care industry to improve the quality of care, safety, and financial management decisions.
Examine the implications of ethical, legal, and regulatory policy issues on health care information systems.
Achieving Meaningful Use Stage 1

According to the statute, meaningful use (MU) will be defined in at least 3 stages. As of this date, MU Stage 1 and MU Stage 2 have been published. For the purpose of the case study, we will only focus on achieving MU Stage 1.

For your Stage 2 Project, you proposed a certified EHR system to improve a business process at the UMUC Family Clinic. The implementation of a certified EHR system will help the Clinic achieve meaningful use in order to qualify for the financial incentives available. In this assignment, you will provide the Clinic with a report that will recommend which incentive program to apply for and help them understand the reporting requirements of meaningful use.

As the EHR consultant, you realize that there is more than one EHR Incentive Program for meaningful use: at the federal level is the Medicare Incentive Program, and at the state-level are the Medicaid Incentive Programs. States and Territories participate on a voluntary basis.

There is a restriction that a health care provider can apply for only one incentive program. To achievemeaningful use you will need to decide on which incentive program to pursue: the Medicaid or the Medicare Incentive program. You will need to do more external research on the CMS website at:

http://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EHRIncentivePrograms/Meaningful_Use.html

The requirements to achieve meaningful use Stage 1 involve some attestation and some reporting requirements of core and menu objectives, which can be found at the URL above for ?meaningful use?.

In addition, to the core and menu objectives, eligible professionals will also need to report on clinical quality measures (CQM). Beginning in 2014, the reporting of clinical quality measures (CQMs) have changed for all providers. More information can be found at http://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EHRIncentivePrograms/Downloads/EP_MeasuresTable_Posting_CQMs.pdfFurthermore, per CMS, eligible professionals must report on 9 of the 64 approved Clinical Quality Measures (CQMs), with a requirement that the selected CQM cover at least 3 of the national quality strategy domains. CMS promotes a list of Recommended Core CQMS, which are optional.