Money Chase Skews Priorities

About half of health-care providers are pursuing federal "meaningful use" incentive money for medical e-records at the expense of meeting technical standards for electronic claims and other financial transactions, a new survey shows.

At issue is a common language that computers use to share medical data, including electronic claims processing, billing and eligibility verification. The language is upgrading to a standard known as 5010 on Jan. 1, 2012. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say providers should begin testing this month so they can work out bugs before the switch.

But the survey found that revenue-producing business initiatives -- including qualifying for electronic health record "meaningful use" incentives -- frequently diverted resources last year from testing and other 5010 preparations. About one-third said other regulatory compliance efforts also were competing with 5010 preparations. In fact, 47 percent of respondents described 5010 and electronic health record implementations as "competing initiatives," the researchers said.

As a result, roughly two-thirds of hospitals and medical practices did not expect to have a 5010 project in the works by the end of 2010. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conducted the online survey last year.

"There is growing concern that the industry will only do minimum testing before the go-live date," said John Casillas, HIMSS senior vice president for business-centered systems, in a news release. Pressed for time, providers likely will scramble with testing and implementation later this year -- and vendors could find themselves unable to meet the demand, HIMSS concluded in the report released last Thursday.

The survey was conducted in April and May, drawing responses from 181 providers. Three out of four were hospitals; the rest were medical practices. At the time of the survey:

• One-third of providers said they did not expect to begin a 5010 project before the end of 2010.
• Only 40 percent had taken the first step of beginning an impact assessment.
• Only 15 percent had begun contacting vendors.
• Thirty-five percent said they had not begun planning.