Letter to e-MDs Customers On Government Incentives
Dear e-MDs Customers,
You should feel honored to be one of the early adopters of electronic health record technology in the United States. The majority of e-MDs Chart users are well-positioned to receive incentive payments from CMS (up to $44,000 for Medicare providers and up to approximately $63,750 for Medicaid providers) for being a “Meaningful User” of a certified EHR starting in 20111. We would like to make you aware of a related federally funded program designed to assist you with becoming a meaningful EHR user.
The federal government has allocated nearly $600 million dollars to 60 Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers (RECs) across the nation 2. These centers have been charged with providing education and direct support to eligible providers, with the goal of having 100,000 physicians become meaningful EHR users over the next two years.
Many of the RECs are in the process of evaluating EHRs and may already have programs in place that will allow you to participate. In some cases the RECs may only choose a small number of “preferred” vendors that they will promote and support. If your REC chooses e-MDs Chart as a preferred EHR you may be eligible to benefit from a significant amount of supplemental training, software support and IT support from these centers. The RECs will supplement our efforts to help you attain meaningful use and become eligible for the incentive payments.
We feel it is in the mutual best interest of our users and e-MDs to participate with as many of these programs as possible. Our representatives are actively reaching out to the RECs and making them aware of our capabilities and achievements. This is the time to contact your REC and identify yourself as a practice that would like participate with the programs they are offering. If you are involved with, or have contacts who you feel we should contact regarding this process, please let us know. Please see the attached table to see which REC has been designated to support practices in your region.
As a company we feel well-positioned to help the RECs achieve their goals. e-MDs Chart and the services provided by e-MDs to its customers have received the highest overall ranking on each of the last five objective EHR evaluations performed by the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Physicians. We have also had a great deal of success with implementing EHRs in the types of practices that the RECs will target; small to medium-sized primary care clinics.
We greatly appreciate your support and we are making every effort to respond to your needs while meeting an expanding array of regulatory requirements. Over the next few months we will be rolling out new programs and features designed to enhance your user experience. As always we look forward to seeing many of you at our annual user conference in Austin this July.
Sincerely,
Michael Stearns, MD, CPC
President and CEO, e-MDs, Inc.
1. For additional details on meaningful use please go to the e-MDs web site (www.e-MDs.com). We are conducting a series of free webinars on this topic and will also continue to notify you about these events using e-MDs Support Center. The meaningful webinars should be of value to users in practices of all specialties and sizes.
2. Please see the attached table to identify the REC that is applicable for your practice’s location