Removing legal barriers to IT adoption

Health Management Technology,  Dec, 2005  

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At last, the federal government is taking steps to encourage adoption of e-prescribing and EHRs and, equally important, to protect those making the effort to adopt from prohibitive federal statutes. In October, the HHS Inspector General (OIG) and the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued proposed rules aimed at loosening legal restrictions on organizations--hospitals, prescription drug plans and Medicare Advantage organizations among others--that want to offer EHR-related software and training, or donate e-prescribing software, hardware and services to speed physician adoption. The CMS and OIG proposals are essentially the same. Both are designed to make sure that organizations that provide or donate e-prescribing or EHR technology to physicians, in accordance with the language of the exceptions, aren't nailed by either the Stark "physician self-referral" law or federal anti-kickback statutes.

However, the conditions specified by both proposed rules are narrow; industry pundits expect that once EHR certification criteria are established and accepted by HHS, both for content and interoperability, refined and replacement language for statutory exceptions may emanate. The 60-day public comment period for both rules ends at 5 p.m., December 12. Text of the proposed rules is available at www.hhs.gov/healthit/adoption.html.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Nelson Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group