‘Meaningful Use’ Pay Cuts Kick in on New Year’s Day

Urgent care doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners who did not demonstrate that they met requirements for meaningful use of electronic health record systems as mandated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will see a 3% decrease in Medicare payments starting January 1, 2017. As you read here, CMS first announced its plans to require clinicians to show meaningful use during a finite 90-day period that year. That finite period was later deemed inadequate so practitioners were allowed to file for hardship status that would allow them to be assessed as a group rather than on a case-by-case basis. Many doctors, PAs, and NPs never got the message. Some critics have charged that CMS did not do enough to update the medical community of the entire program, but the penalties are coming nonetheless.