Will EHR Incentive Registrations Toping 150,000 = Job Creation?
From: www.EMRDailyNews.com
By: Steve Campbell
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have announced that the number of physicians and hospitals to have registered for the Medicare or Medicaid electronic health record incentive program has increased to over 150,000 through the end of November.
According to a report at GovHealthIT.com the breakdown through the end of November is 115,093 physicians and hospitals that have signed up for the Medicare program and 39,503 that have signed up for the Medicaid program. 2,634 hospitals are eligible for both programs bring the total registrants to 154,596. That total number is up from around 114,000 at the end of September.
Total incentive funds paid out through November 30th now exceed $1.8 billion with nearly $1 billion of that having been paid over the past two months. At this rate the total payments for the incentive payments for the year may exceed $2.5 billion.
The breakdown of the $1.8 billion paid out so far is as follows:
* Payments under the Medicare Program $920 million
* Payments under the Medicaid Program $916 million
The CMS reports these numbers a few days after the close of each month.