The groups urged the White House Office of Health Reform, the Department of Health & Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to define the terms “hospital” and “hospital-based physician” in a way that makes incentives for EHR adoption possible for the greatest number of hospitals and physicians, according to the report.
In a formal letter, the groups urged the OHR, HHS and CMS to define a hospital as a “discrete site of service.” This definition would allow individual sites of multi-campus health systems to qualify separately for incentives, according to the report.
The groups also voiced their concern for the current definition of “hospital-based physician” as a physician who performs nearly all his or her services in a hospital setting, arguing that such a definition could exclude hospital-based physicians who practice in an outpatient setting.
Read AHANewsNow’s report on the HITECH Act definitions.
