By Vera Gruessner
Full article at EHRIntelligence
Previously, meaningful use requirements made it difficult for healthcare providers to receive financial incentives from the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs if they send their patients to ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Since ASCs do not have certified EHR technology, it was not possible for providers to obtain these incentives.
However, the Electronic Health Fairness Act has changed these issues, as it has averted the need for services performed in ASCs to be counted toward the 50 percent patient encounters threshold under meaningful use requirements until the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) develops certified EHR technology for this particular segment of healthcare settings, according to the HIMSS website.