The following is an announcement from the Wisconsin Medicaid EHR Incentive Program.

On November 23, 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the CY 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule. This rule includes changes to the Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program. Listed below are the key changes resulting from the final rule.

Electronic Clinical Quality Measure (eCQM) Policies

  • The list of available eCQMs for Eligible Professionals in Program Year 2019 was aligned with the list of eCQMs available for eligible clinicians under the 2019 Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Those eCQMs can be found at https://ecqi.healthit.gov/eligible-professional-eligible-clinician-ecqms.
  • Eligible Professionals who are returning meaningful users must report on a one year eCQM reporting period and first-time meaningful users must report on a 90-day eCQM reporting period.
  • Eligible Professionals are required to report on any six eCQMs related to their scope of practice.
  • Beginning in Program Year 2019, Eligible Professionals are required to report on at least one outcome or high-priority eCQM. If there are no outcome or high priority measures relevant to an Eligible Professional’s scope of practice, they may report on any six relevant measures.
  • States are allowed to designate a list of high priority eCQMs.

Note: The Wisconsin Medicaid EHR Incentive Program intends to publish a tip sheet identifying all outcome and high-priority measures available for use by Wisconsin Medicaid providers in early 2019.

Meaningful Use Policies

  • The threshold for Stage 3 Objective 6, Measure 1 (View, Download, Transmit) and Measure 2 (Secure Messaging) was set at 5% for the remainder of the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. Prior to this change, these measure thresholds were scheduled to increase in Program Year 2019.
  • The requirement that only Eligible Professionals in urgent care settings can use the Syndromic Surveillance measure to meet Objective 8 (Public Health) was removed.

Program Year 2021 Policies

  • In Program Year 2021, all Eligible Professionals will have 90-day reporting periods for meaningful use measures and eCQMs to allow states to meet the statutory deadline of December 31, 2021, for all incentives to be paid.
  • October 31, 2021, is the default deadline for attestations but states may set an earlier deadline to ensure payments can be issued.