12.11.09 – Hospitals call for incentive definitions that promote EHR adoption

On December 4, 2009 the American Hospital Association published that forty-three hospitals and health systems today urged federal officials to define “hospital” and “hospital-based physician,” as outlined in the HITECH Act, in a way that makes health information technology available to the greatest number of hospitals and physicians. In a letter to the White House Office of Health Reform, Department of Health & Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the group recommends defining a hospital “as a discrete site of service, so that individual sites of multi-campus facilities are eligible to qualify separately for the incentives.” Noting that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s HITECH Act provisions define hospital-based physicians as those who furnish substantially all of their services in a hospital setting using the hospital’s facilities and equipment, the letter adds, “We are concerned that broad regulatory interpretation of this hospital-based physician definition may inappropriately exclude physicians practicing in outpatient centers and provider-based clinics merely because their office or clinic is located in a facility owned by the hospital.”