In this post, guest blogger Mary Polk gives insight into RECs and the benefits they offer practices and physicians who are adopting EHRs and attesting for meaningful use. Mary is the Practice Administrator of Nephrology Associates, PA in Delaware—a practice with 25 nephrologists and 11 nurse practitioners providing services throughout the state of DE.
It’s spring. My baseball team is in first place, my garden looks great and I feel optimistic about Meaningful Use. Call me crazy, but I am impressed with the amount of information and assistance available. In addition to CMS and Professional Organizations such as MGMA, many in the EHR vendor community are providing up-to-the minute information and excellent guidelines. However, in discussing MU with my colleagues, several seem unaware of the REC’s, or Regional Extension Centers created by the HITECH Act.
Under the HITECH Act, $677M was allocated to fund a national network of organizations to assist physicians and hospitals in adopting and using electronic health records in a meaningful way. Between February and September 2010, Dr. David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology, awarded contracts to 62 community-based organizations. The goal is to reach at least 100,000 primary care providers within the first two years, which includes internal medicine and its subspecialties.
The REC’s fall into three categories but all have the same goals and funding rules. Sixteen are QIO organizations in their state and have well-established experience with CMS and the Medicare program. . Others are attached to educational institutions such as Duke in NC and Purdue in Indiana. Several are new organizations and may be struggling with developing expertise and relationships in the provider community.
Each REC has a project coordinator or officer who has a direct link to CMS and ONC. They have a specific number of physicians to target based on the number of primary care providers in the region. My REC, Quality Insights of DE (QID), has a target of 1,000 physicians. Funding is directly tied to the success of the practice and is released when the practice signs a contract committing to implementing an electronic medical record, successfully goes live on a certified EHR and successfully completes the attestation process.
We are lucky in DE. Quality Insights is a well-established organization. It has spent the past year recruiting experienced staff and reaching out to physicians and practices. Their published EHR Implementation Plan is rolled out over six phases. These include practice assessment, vendor selection, implementation and training, post GoLive evaluation, privacy and security measures and meaningful use. The cost is minimal; they have a preferred pricing model with vendors and their staff has hands-on experience.
I encourage you to look into this resource. Not all are up to speed yet, but my contacts tell me there is a free flow of information and with the funding model that is in place there is plenty of incentive to develop into an excellent organization. Get more information and a listing of the REC in your area here and here. Or, if you’ve already taken advantage of an REC, we’d love to hear about your experience.
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