Old Dogs and New Tricks
Can Dr. Wilson make the changes at his practice on his own, or does he need help? Is Dr. Wilson concerned about meaningful use? Ben’s patient sighed heavily. “I know I should eat better, sleep more, exercise, and all that, Dr. Wilson, but it’s hard to change at my age.” “Lifestyle changes can be hard at any age,” Ben agreed, “but the chiropractic lifestyle will make a difference for you.” “I was planning on dying young,” his patient joked, “but I never got around to it.” “I hear you! But since you’re going to be around for a lot longer than you expected, it makes sense to work on those changes. Try just doing one thing at a time. When that gets easy, move on to the next change.” “Okay, but you know what they say — you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!” As Ben prepared for the next patient, he thought about the changes he was going to have to make to meet the October 1 deadline for meaningful use reporting. Providers who had met Stage 1 meaningful use requirements now had to meet Stage 2 requirements, plus having to use 2014-certified software, even if they had used 2011-certified software for Stage 1. The incentives would be nice, but somehow it all seemed more complex now than it had when he had opened his practice. Dr. Wilson remembered his patient saying, “It’s hard to change at my age.” But he didn’t really feel that he was so much older than he had been the first time he’d thought about meaningful use. Maybe it really was more complicated this time around — or maybe, he thought as he listened to the bustle of the practice outside his door, his practice was more complicated. Getting everybody on board for something new was naturally going to be harder than setting things up for himself, and of course he had a lot more patients now, plus a family, so he had less free time. And of course handling the records of a dozen patients was a lot simpler than dealing with the number of records in the current system. When he had looked at the objectives and measures he’d have to meet, Ben realized that he couldn’t really tell whether he was in compliance or not without doing a lot of work with the data in the system, and he wasn’t sure he had anyone on staff who would find that kind of analysis easy. Ben always advised patients to take small steps and work up to big changes, but that might not be a possibility for the meaningful use requirements, since there was a deadline looming. Maybe he needed to form an action group at the practice — or get some outside help. Can Dr. Wilson make the changes at his practice on his own, or does he need help? Disclaimer: For HIPAA compliance, all characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental.
The Deadline Approaches
Is Ben’s practice ready for the EHR deadline… or will he have to make more changes? Does he have questions about meaningful use? Ben and Carmen Wilson said goodbye to their friends at the door and walked arm in arm to their car. “That was fun,” said Carmen. “It looked like you and Richard were having some intense conversation.” “Shop talk,” said Ben, opening the car door for his wife. He walked around the car and slid into his own seat. “It was all about Meaningful Use.” “Wow — I haven’t heard about that in a while,” said Carmen. “Wasn’t that what got you to change to electronic health records in your office?” “That’s right. Back in 2009, there was a big push to make the switch to Meaningful Use of electronic health records, and I did. But at that point, there wasn’t a lot of clarity about what exactly would count as Meaningful Use. We knew the solutions we used would have to be certified, but the powers that be hadn’t certified anything at that point. And of course things have changed since then, both in technology and in our office.” “Very true,” mused Carmen. “Our little boy wasn’t even born yet. Time flies when you’re having fun!” Ben chuckled. “So why did that come up tonight?” “Back in 2009, the goal was to get everyone to Meaningful Use of electronic health records in five years. Well, it’s been five years. October 1st is the deadline, and anyone who isn’t using an ONC-certified EHR by October 1st faces penalties.” “But you’ve already done what you were supposed to do!” objected Carmen. “Things have changed,” Ben repeated, pulling into their garage. He turned off the car and turned to Carmen. “I remember reading the New York Times that year that small practices like mine –” “It was just you!” his wife broke in. “Right. So making changes was pretty easy. Smaller practices were leading the way and the biggest organizations were putting significant funds into big five-year plans. But you know, something like 10 percent of doctors weren’t even online yet.” Carmen slowly shook her head. “Hard to imagine now, isn’t it?” “Very. Still, the deadline is approaching, so I need to make sure that what I did way back when meets the requirements now.” “The babysitter is going to be wondering what we’re doing out here,” Carmen said, climbing out of the car. “It doesn’t sound like this is going to be a big problem.” “No,” Ben agreed. “It’s just one more thing to think about.” Is Ben’s practice in compliance… or will he have to make more changes?