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Both the House and Senate stimulus bills include incentives for physicians to incorporate electronic health records into their practices, but for pathologists, qualifying for the different incentive programs will depend on your practice.
Independent pathologists, as part of H.R. 1 and S. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, would be eligible for a $15,000 incentive payment for adopting electronic health records starting 2011, with a declining incentive scale each subsequent year until 2015.
Hospital-based pathologists are ineligible for this particular incentive payment due to concerns over double payment. Legislators have allocated HIT incentive payments directly to the hospital, and have assumed it would negate the need to provide HIT incentives directly to hospital-based pathologists. CAP is monitoring the effect of this provision.
Additional HIT grants may also be made available for physicians through low-interest loans provided by the Federal government to the states.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that approximately 90 percent of doctors and 70 percent of hospitals will be using electronic health records within the next decade as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The College anticipates tremendous advantages from the adoption of the electronic health record system, and will continue to advocate for incorporation of health information technology provisions within the stimulus package and in the healthcare agenda.
Above article published on www.cap.org
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