Maryland Health Care Commission CMS Electronic Health Records Demo

The Maryland/DC Physician EHR Demonstration Collaborative (Collaborative) was formed to assist the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in implementing a five-year demonstration project to encourage small to medium sized primary care physician practices to use electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs have the potential to improve the quality of patient care. The Collaborative brings together MedChi the Maryland State Medical Society, the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC), and the DC Medical Society to provide support to the demonstration. Supporters included primary care provider organizations, health plans, employers, and other health care organizations to assure that we had a broad reach to the primary care physician practices for this project.

Project Update: The EHR Demonstration completed its second full year on May 31, 2011. Later this year, the demonstration project was scheduled to enter a new phase with the collection of clinical quality measure data. Prior to this new phase, CMS decided it was an appropriate time to review the progress of the demonstration project and determine whether it was on track to measure the effect of a financial incentive on the adoption and use of EHRs.

According to CMS, there was a significant decrease in the number of practices participating the treatment group. For the most part, this decrease is a result of practices from other states that decided to no longer participate in the demonstration project; Maryland had roughly 11 practices that exited the demonstration project. CMS was concerned that findings from the study could be negatively impacted if the treatment group were to continue to decline. CMS made the difficult decision to terminate the demonstration project effective August 1, 2011.

CMS will pay all practices that submitted the Office System Survey (OSS) this year, and that met the minimum EHR function requirements, the incentive earned for the second year of the demonstration project is in the same manner as year one. Please note that practices will not have to submit any clinical quality data in order to receive this incentive. Initially, the incentive for the second year of the demonstration project required not only that practices meet the EHR requirements, but also that they successfully report 26 required clinical quality data measures. CMS projects that incentive payments will be processed later this fall, after all of the OSS results are finalized and CMS has completed the beneficiary assignment calculation for the second demonstration project year.

The MHCC will continue to provide educational materials over the next few months to practices participating in the demonstration project. We will also explore opportunities to transition our educational activities for practices in the demonstration project to the state Regional Extension Program.

For details from the EHR Demonstration Project Kick-off Meeting held on May 5, 2009, click on any of the links below

CMS EHR Demonstration Practices by Specialty