A recent survey of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) members found that 38% of the CIOs surveyed are planning to take advantage of the new Stark Exception and anti-kickback safe harbor laws. They are planning on donating health information technology in the form of: software, implementation support, training and help desk support.
Mike Raymer, Senior Vice President of Solutions Management for Misys Healthcare Systems, feels this is significant. "That’s a third of the hospitals that were unable to legally pursue this strategy two years ago," relates Raymer. "And each one of those hospitals represents hundreds of physicians. This is a significant market shift, with hospitals utilizing their economic leverage to reduce the financial barrier to EMR adoption by physicians."
Of the 62% of hospitals that are not planning to take advantage of new Stark exception and anti-kickback safe harbor laws to donate health information technology, comments from CIOs identified some common pain points:
- One is that physicians will use the safe harbor to get almost free services from hospitals without any real intention of utilizing what is provided.
To address this challenge, Mike Raymer points to the capability of Misys MyWay™ stating, “Misys MyWay works the way a doctor works, motivating its adoption and use by physicians. And keep in mind that one of the reasons that the safe harbor provision does not provide for a 100% cost offset is that the physicians are incented to use the technology, as they are paying for it at least in part.”
- The second challenge is that many CIOs feel that a gray area is still present within the Stark laws as to the interoperability requirement.
Raymer addresses this issue as well: “As I understand it, there is a bifurcated approach to determining interoperability for purposes of the Stark exception. One is that a product be ‘deemed’ interoperable, which, for all intents and purposes means that a product be certified within the past 12 months. The other is that the product must be proven interoperable. Misys currently has two products that are preliminarily approved for EMR certification in 2007. More importantly, however, we clearly demonstrate the interoperability capabilities of our software solutions with our participation in the IHE interoperability showcase.”
CIOs surveyed by CHIME who are taking advantage of Stark and safe harbor laws indicated that there are a variety of cost models that are being pursued so that the physicians cover the required 15%. These include:
- Monthly fees–per physician per month
- Hardware covered by physicians
- Hardware cost will be covered by physicians, also charge time and material for customization