A Government Accountability Office report issued late last week examining Medicare EHR incentive payments found only 16 percent of eligible hospitals and 9 percent of professionals received payments under the program in 2011.
The report, "Electronic Health Records: Number and Characteristics of Providers Awarded Medicare Incentive Payments for 2011,” provides a broad range of information indicating EHR adoption rates using government data, in advance of CMS' intent to apply Medicare payment adjustments beginning in 2015.
In all, the GAO reported that in 2011, 761 hospitals and 56,585 professionals were awarded a total of approximately $2.3 billion in Medicare EHR incentive payments for 2011. The 761 hospitals represented only 16 percent of all hospitals eligible to receive incentive payments. In addition, more than 56,000 professionals qualified for Medicare EHR incentive payments, or only about 9 percent of the more than 600,000 eligible for the program.
There were some common characteristics of hospitals that received incentive payments. The report noted that acute care hospitals were more than twice as likely to receive incentives payments as critical access hospitals, and nearly half of all hospitals receiving payments – 46 percent – were in the top third in terms of the number of beds.
Hospitals in the South were most likely (44 percent) to receive payments, while Northeast hospitals lagged, garnering only 12 percent of all incentive payments.
Professionals with certain characteristics were more likely to have been awarded a Medicare EHR incentive payment for 2011. Specific findings include:
- General practice physicians were 1.8 times more likely than specialty practice physicians to have been awarded an incentive payment.
- Professionals who had previously participated in CMS’ electronic prescribing program were almost four times more likely to have been awarded an incentive payment than those who had not participated in the electronic prescribing program.
- Professionals who had signed an agreement to receive technical assistance from a Regional Extension Center were more than twice as likely to have been awarded an incentive payment.
- Professionals in the top third in terms of 2010 Medicare Part B charges or number of 2010 Medicare Part B encounters were more than three times more likely to have been awarded an incentive payment compared to those in the bottom third for charges or number of encounters.
The GAO conducted the study in response to concerns that EHR adoption among hospitals and professionals is lagging, with some estimates that as many as 78 percent of office-based physicians and 91 percent of hospitals had not adopted EHRs as of 2009.
“Concerns have been raised that various factors, such as location in urban or rural areas or the size of hospitals and professional practices, may affect the extent to which different providers will respond to the provisions of the HITECH Act that aim to encourage the meaningful use of EHR technology,” the report noted. “Identifying the number and characteristics of providers that participated during the first year of the Medicare EHR program can provide important information on whether certain types of providers were more likely than others to participate.”