Does Your Primary Care Provider Get Meaningful Use?

Last Monday, my personal medical practice called me.  They didn’t call to confirm my next appointment, nor to advise me how on my last lab report results, nor for any personal health related issue of any kind. The practice administrator of my small primary care practice (four physicians and two physician assistants) needed my help and professional expertise related to health information technology and EHR adoption.

The conversation went something like this in an 8-10 minute time span:

Practice: Hi Mary, how are you? 

Mary: Good, thank you.

Practice:  I have a few questions for you. Do you have a few minutes?

Mary: Yes, I do. How can I assist you?

Practice:  We have been approached by some people who say they are able to assist us with our EHR implementation.  I don’t know these individuals.  I know that you’re connected to the health IT sector, so I wanted to know if you ever heard of this group?

Mary: No, I haven’t.  I don’t who they are affiliated with. How did you come to know them?

Practice: Both the Independent Practice Association and the Connecticut State Medical Association seem to be supportive of them.  Do you think they are reliable and can be trusted? If we sign-up with them, they say they can assist us with our EHR implementation, and we want to make sure we’re making a smart decision.

Mary: What is the cost to sign-up with them?

Practice: Well, they have a tiered benefit plan with a variety of consulting services that we can buy into. The top plan will take us all the way through implementation of the EHR so we can get the money.

Mary:  Interesting. Do you know if they are a partner or approved contractor of Connecticut’s regional extension center?

Practice: The who? I really do not know, but the state medical association says it’s going to help us potentially by underwriting the cost of signing up with them.

The conversation continues…I encouraged my practice to sign-on with an organization associated with Connecticut’s regional extension center. I also sent them a few HIMSS resources and tools to assist them in understanding the current health IT environment. And, I encouraged them to understand specifically how Connecticut’s Medical Association could assist with EHR implementation costs.

Funny thing though…I noticed that neither “meaningful use” nor “regional extension center” ever came up in the conversation until I mentioned them.

Clearly, those of us who have made the best use of health IT our lifework have a responsibility to assist ambulatory clinicians in understanding what is taking place today.  We also have a responsibility to educate our providers on the EHR incentive program.

This includes understanding what is going on in your state and being connected to your state’s regional extension center. These types of discussions are going on across the United States right now daily, and I encourage you to start with your own practice and lead the way!

I offer the following as background information to help make it as easy for you as possible to provide accurate information to your primary care providers. 

On Feb. 12, 2010, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announced nearly $1 billion in grant awards for regional extension center, health information exchange and healthcare IT training. The funding came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and is to go toward advancing healthcare IT, training workers for healthcare IT jobs and helping to make healthcare IT available to more than 100,000 healthcare providers. Under the Recovery Act, Congress created RECs to help some 100,000 primary care providers and hospitals implement and use healthcare IT.

Be sure and visit the HIMSS website for helpful resources on the Office of the National Coordinator, and the Regional Extension Centers (R.E.C.) program.

What are you hearing from your primary care providers on this topic?  We’d love to hear.