Attestation is a legal statement an eligible provider delivers to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), saying that he or she has met all requirements of the Medicare EHR Incentive Program. The process takes place using an online system that enables the provider (or authorized representative, like a service provider) to enter information about all core and menu objectives. If Medicare Meaningful Use attestation is successful, CMS sends the provider an incentive payment in approximately four to eight weeks.
Medicare Meaningful Use attestation places considerable demands on the health provider's EHR system, as well the vendor or partner supplying the EHR software or technology. Not only must providers—and their EHR system—meet and record all core and menu objectives for each reporting period, but they must also be prepared for the new complexities and certification standards necessary for 2015 attestation.
To ensure all objectives are being met, an EHR system should provide real-time monitoring, as well as the ability to detect trends that indicate when a provider is at risk of falling below any of the required thresholds. When this happens (and it does), the EHR vendor needs to recognize the type of corrective action and/or coaching that's needed, and provide it promptly.
Meaningful Use incentive payments are no longer available for providers new to the program. Medicare-eligible professionals who do not successfully demonstrate meaningful use of an EHR will be subject to a penalty by way of a Medicare payment reduction. The reduction starts at 1% in 2015 and increases each year that an EP does not demonstrate meaningful use, to a maximum reduction of 5%.
For those new to Meaningful Use
Providers who are new to Meaningful Use in 2016 must report on a 90-day period within the first three quarters of the year, or prior do October 1, 2016
