Saturday, December 25, 2010

Maryland law will allow state to put stimulus cash toward electronic health records - Washington Business Journal:

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House Bill 706 allows the state to make use of federa stimulus dollars available for electronic health records and coordinatre those efforts withthe state’es own plan to create a state wide health information exchange. The federal stimulues money provided $19 billion toward electronif health records. State health officials do not know how much of that moneg will flowto Maryland. State and federal healtuh officials are pushing electronic healtbh records because they believe they will reduce medica errors and lower costs by eliminatingb the need for runningmultiple tests.
The stimulus package enablesw physicians to receive incentivesbetween $44,000 and $64,000 over the next five years through Medicare and Medicaid. It costs, on $50,000 for a physician practice to implemeny electronichealth records. The incentive paymentss begin in 2011, and physicians who do not adopt an electronicf health records will be penalized through lower Medicaid and Medicarre payments startingin 2015. In the the biggest obstacle in getting physicians to install an electronic healthg recordwas cost. The federal stimulus moneh andthe state’s health information exchange overcomed that obstacle by providing incentives to adoptg health records.
“It’s trying to creatwe a business model tomake [health IT] Secretary John Colmers said. While the federal moneg provides payments tophysician practices, the state is takingb its own steps to ensure that hospitals can share electronidc information. The legislation requireas the and the to designat a state health informationj exchangeby Oct. 1. State health insurers will provide incentiveasto hospitals, which include a lump sum paymeny or increased reimbursement, to adopt electronic healtgh records.
, and more than a dozen companies and healthj care institutions have submitted their own plan tothe state’s healtn care commission to create a healtbh information exchange, known as the for our

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