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Massachusetts to receive federal matching funds for electronic health record incentives program
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In another key step to further states’ role in developing a robust U.S. health information technology (HIT) infrastructure, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced in a press release that Massachusetts’s Medicaid program will receive $3.56 million in federal matching funds for the commonwealth’s planning activities necessary to implement the electronic health record (EHR) incentive program established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The Recovery Act provides a 90% federal match for state planning activities to administer the incentive payments to Medicaid providers, to ensure their proper payments through audits and to participate in statewide efforts to promote interoperability and meaningful use of EHR technology statewide and, eventually, across the nation, according to the press release.
“We congratulate Massachusetts for qualifying for these federal matching funds to assist its plan for implementing the Recovery Act’s EHR incentive program,” Cindy Mann, director of the Center for Medicaid, CHIP and Survey & Certification at CMS, stated in the release. “Meaningful and interoperable use of EHRs in Medicaid will increase health care efficiency, reduce medical errors and improve quality-outcomes and patient satisfaction within and across the states.”
Massachusetts’ HIT planning activities include conducting a comprehensive analysis to determine the current status of HIT activities in the commonwealth. As part of that process, Massachusetts will gather information on issues such as existing barriers to its use of EHRs, provider eligibility for EHR incentive payments, and the creation of a State Medicaid HIT Plan, which will define the state’s vision for its long-term HIT use.