Kentucky Medicaid EHR Incentive Program

Register Now for the Kentucky Medicaid EHR Incentive Program

  Please click EHR Incentive Program to complete your registration for the Kentucky Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. Information about the program is also listed below.

KY Medicaid EHR Incentive Program Information

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Section 4201) established the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program for payment to certain classes of Medicaid professionals and hospitals who adopt and become meaningful users of electronic health records.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) have released rules to guide the program, integrating it into the broader health information technology infrastructure needed to reform the health care system and improve health care quality, efficiency and patient safety.

Information on the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs can be found on the CMS website. Administration of the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program is a combined effort of both the states and CMS. We recommend you visit the CMS website for a baseline understanding of the program and use this website to find information on Kentucky-specific questions.

The nation's health care system is undergoing a transformation in an effort to improve quality, safety and efficiency of care, from the upgrade to ICD-10 to information exchanges of EHR technology.

To help facilitate this vision, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or the HITECH Act established programs under Medicare and Medicaid to provide incentive payments for the meaningful use of certified EHR technology. David Blumenthal, MD, MPP, explains this in more detail in his article The Meaningful Use Regulation for Electronic Health Records published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

There are slight differences between the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. Refer to the Medicaid Provisions of the EHR Incentive Program.

The final rule published to the Federal Register on July 28, 2010 defines eligible professionals as physicians, dentists, certified nurse-midwives, nurse practitioners and physician assistants who are practicing in federally qualified health centers or rural health clinics led by a physician assistant.

To be eligible for a Medicaid EHR incentive payment, a professional must meet certain Medicaid patient volume requirements. For more information, visit the Medicaid Eligible Professionals section of the CMS website.

Eligible hospitals that may participate are acute care hospitals, critical access hospitals and children's hospitals whose CCN number falls into one of the following ranges: 0001-0879, 1300-1399, and 3300-3399.

To be eligible for a Medicaid EHR incentive payment, acute care hospitals and critical access hospitals must have at least 10 percent Medicaid (Title XIX) patient volume. Children's hospitals have no Medicaid patient volume requirements. For more information visit the Hospital section of the CMS website.

In order to implement Section 4201 of ARRA, Kentucky has been developing a State Medicaid HIT Plan (SMHP) to promote the adoption of EHR technologies and maximize Medicaid incentive payments for eligible providers. The outcome of the SMHP will include a plan for:

• Administering HIT incentive payments to eligible professionals and hospitals
• Conducting adequate program oversight including tracking meaningful use by providers
• Encouraging adoption of certified EHR technology and HIE to promote health care quality and the exchange of health care information.

On Sept. 1, 2009, CMS issued a letter to state Medicaid directors to provide initial guidance on state expenses related to activities in support of the administration of incentive payments to providers.

On Aug. 17, 2010, CMS issued another letter to state Medicaid directors to provide additional guidance on federal funding for Medicaid HIT activities.