A little more time for MU and PQRS reporting… March 20
On February 25, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the extension of key deadlines for both the EHR Incentive Programs and Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS).
MU 2014 reporting date extension
Eligible Professionals (EPs) planning to attest to Meaningful Use (MU) under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program for a reporting period in 2014 now have until 11:59 p.m. EDT on March 20, 2015 to attest. (The previous deadline was February 28, 2015.) Note: Medicaid EPs should check with their individual state for attestation deadlines. This CMS MU attestation deadline extension announcement pertains only to Medicare attestations.
PQRS date extension
CMS also has extended submission deadlines for PQRS reporting via an EHR Direct Data Submission Vendor to 8:00 p.m. EDT on March 20, 2015. Note: This PQRS reporting method is supported by NextGen® Health Quality Measures (NextGen HQM).
Per CMS, submission time frames remain the same for other PQRS reporting methods, with the exception of QCRD reporting (also extended to March 20), which is not part of the NextGen Healthcare PQRS reporting solution.
Actions required by NextGen Healthcare clients
NextGen Healthcare urges clients to work aggressively on PQRS and MU 2014 reporting in advance of the new deadlines. CMS systems have been known to go down during high-volume periods so clients should complete reporting at the earliest possible date
Note: Clients who intend to use the NextGen HQM module to facilitate their PQRS reporting should understand that first-time set up takes approximately 10 days to complete. If your organization has not previously set up NextGen HQM, the final date for requests to install and configure NextGen HQM to support the reporting requirements discussed in this communication is March 10, 2015.
If reporting PQRS measures, please be sure to generate and approve your XML file on the HQM Portal as soon as possible to ensure successful reporting.
If attesting for your 2014 MU reporting period, please be sure to log in to the CMS attestation website in advance of the March 20, 2015 deadline to attest.
One more thing…
Registering Intent for MU Public Health Reporting Objectives
CMS also issued a reminder for EPs under the EHR Incentive Programs who are planning to meet one or more of the Stage 2 public health measures. Under Stage 2, EPs are required to register their intent to initiate ongoing submission of data to Public Health Agencies within 60 days of the start of the EHR reporting period. For 2015, this deadline is March 1, 2015.*
NextGen Healthcare urges all clients planning to report one of the Stage 2 public health measures to meet the March 1, 2015 deadline, especially those who would select the first 90-day reporting period in 2015. Providers should contact their Public Health Agencies for details on how to register intent.
The Stage 2 public health measures are as follows: immunization reporting, syndromic reporting, cancer case reporting, and specialized registry reporting.
*It should be noted that CMS recently announced its intent to shorten the 2015 reporting period to 90 days. If this change is adopted as expected, the above deadline would remain only for EPs attesting for the first 90-day reporting period in 2015. For all other EPs, deadlines would correspond to their chosen 90-day reporting period.
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