Since the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology opened up enrollment for the electronic medical records incentive program, interest among healthcare providers has been keen. While many are looking forward to receiving incentive payments for the meaningful use of technology, there may still be some hurdles lying between the healthcare system and a full health information exchange network.
The ONC began accepting physician registrations for the incentive program on January 3. Since that time, the office has reported that more than 4,000 providers had already signed up for the program as of January 6, according to Government Health IT. Officials said that this number shows that there is strong interest among providers in the program and in using technology to deliver better care.
"We expect that number will continue to increase daily," Joseph Kuchler, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the news source.
Despite this surge in interest, some have still expressed concern that there are still some challenges that may result in slower than expected adoption of electronic health records. A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that only 10 percent of healthcare providers have fully functioning EHR systems in place.
While this number is less than some may have hoped to see at this point, others are looking at the glass as half full. David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health IT, told iHealthBeat that the numbers actually show a rapid increase over previous measures of adoption rates.
"They suddenly go up, and the first couple of data points don't look absolutely so great, but once the slope changes, you're on a very, very steep curve," he told the news source. "So I'm hoping that's what we're beginning to see here. Admittedly, there will be some hospitals that are out ahead of other hospitals, but I'm quite confident that the president's agenda will be successful."
His office is expected to begin processing incentive payments in April. After providers have attested that they are meeting the government's meaningful use standards, they will become eligible to receive up to $44,000 from Medicare or $63,750 from Medicaid. Hospitals that have multiple providers may be eligible for both programs, and could receive millions of dollars.