CMS Agrees To Demands From Physicians & Congress To Modify Rules For Electronic Medical Records

I recently discussed the problems with the government regulations for conversion to electronic medical records. The majority of doctors have been unable to comply with the regulations which were scheduled to begin this January (already postponed from last October) for reasons beyond our control. A bill with bipartisan sponsors was introduced in Congress to postpone the current requirements further until October, 2015. While this would be helpful, further changes are also needed in the requirements.

CMS has responded to the complaints, sending out an email to physicians today stating that the rules will be reevaluated this spring. This includes considering changing the requirement from a 365 day reporting period for 2015 to a 90 day reporting period, which would essentially postpone the requirements until October. The email also stated they would be “Modifying other aspects of the programs to match long-term goals, reduce complexity, and lessen providers’ reporting burden.” Modifications have already been made in the past to the regulations to reduce their complexity, but further modifications remain necessary.

While no official changes were announced at this time, it seems inconceivable that they will not go long with recommendations to postpone when the changes are due until October now that they have announced plans to consider this. It will also be necessary to make other revisions to the rules, which also now is under consideration. Complicating matters further, in addition to these requirements for electronic medical records, conversion to ICD-10 diagnoses codes (which has also been postponed several times) is also now scheduled to occur in October.

CMS has also announced plans to reconsider the regulations on their blog.

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