Meaningful Use: Big Payout Or Burnout?

Over $5 billion in meaningful use (MU) incentive payments have been sent, so why are some healthcare professionals not planning on participating?

By Lisa Kerner, contributing writer

With $5.2 billion in incentive payments sent to about half of the estimated 527,000 eligible healthcare professionals as of March, 2013, meaningful use (MU) adoption seems to be paying off according to the American Medical News. Citing a report issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that details EHR registration, American Medical News notes “386,024 physicians and other eligible professionals are already in the program” and “3,858 eligible hospitals have gotten a total of nearly $8.6 billion in incentive payments.

So if the checks are in the mail, why hasn’t everyone signed up?

A recent Deloitte Center for Health Solutions report indicates close to half of the MU non-adopters expect to remain that way because, despite MU’s promise of improved efficiency, the costs and integration issues for those not yet at Stage 1 are too daunting. Those on track or ahead of the MU incentive program curve are focused on achieving Stage 1 or even Stage 2. But could all this focus on meeting requirements result in burnout?

A recent Government Health IT article says organizations might experience MU fatigue by 2015. In the article Laura Kreofsky, program director for California-based Sutter Health’s MU program, says, “We will have been slogging with MU for five years, and with so many things on our radar, in some respects, MU may fall to the back burner.” She adds the key to avoiding burnout is to “operationalize” MU, realizing that is likely to be an 8- to 10-year project that simply can’t be parceled out to various departments.

Government Health IT also notes, “As EHR implementations increase ahead of government deadlines for incentive dollars, dissatisfaction among clinicians is growing.” Some doctors and nurses just don’t like their EHR systems, with user satisfaction falling 12% in two years. The article also cites a 2012 Physicians Foundation study indicating half of the physicians surveyed believe any quality of care gains were not worth the cost of an EHR system. Proper education of the clinical workforce, the article suggests, is key to getting the fastest return on investment and the biggest bang for your EHR dollars. Transitioning to a new system requires planning “for the human transition from paper to pixels, not just the technological change.”