On April 27, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the proposed rule for fiscal year (FY) 2022 Medicare Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long Term Care Hospital (LTCH). Please see additional details below.

• Proposed rule fact sheet: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/fiscal-year-fy-2022-medicare-hospital-inpatient-prospective-payment-system-ipps-and-long-term-care
• Download the proposed rule from the Federal Register: https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2021-08888/medicare-program-hospital-inpatient-prospective-payment-systems-for-acute-care-hospitals-and-the

CMS has specifically proposed the following changes to the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals:

• Continue the EHR reporting period of a minimum of any continuous 90-day period for new and returning eligible hospitals and CAHs for CY 2023 and to increase the EHR reporting period to a minimum of any continuous 180-day period for new and returning eligible hospitals and CAHs for CY 2024;
• Maintain the Electronic Prescribing Objective’s Query of PDMP measure as optional while increasing its available bonus from 5 points to 10 points;
• Modify technical specifications of the Provide Patients Electronic Access to Their Health Information measure to include establishing a data availability requirement;
• Add a new Health Information Exchange (HIE) Bi-Directional Exchange measure as a yes/no attestation, beginning in CY 2022 to the HIE objective as an optional alternative to the two existing measures;
• Require reporting “yes” on four of the existing Public Health and Clinical Data Exchange Objective measures (Syndromic Surveillance Reporting, Immunization Registry Reporting, Electronic Case Reporting, and Electronic Reportable Laboratory Result Reporting) or requesting applicable exclusion(s);
• Attest to having completed an annual assessment of all nine guides in the SAFER Guides measure, under the Protect Patient Health Information objective;
• Remove attestation statements 2 and 3 from the Promoting Interoperability Program’s prevention of information blocking attestation requirement;
• Increase the minimum required score for the objectives and measures from 50 points to 60 points (out of 100 points) to be considered a meaningful EHR user; and
• Adopt two new eCQMs to the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program’s eCQM measure set beginning with the reporting period in CY 2023, in addition to removing four eCQMs from the measure set beginning with the reporting period in CY 2024 (in alignment with proposals for the Hospital IQR Program).

Questions? Contact the experts at Kentucky REC for all your hospital Promoting Interoperability questions. We’re here to help: 859-323-3090.