October 28, 2011 — On Oct. 19, 2011, James W. Gudgel, DC, of Redwood Falls, Minn., received $18,000 from Medicare under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 for incorporating an electronic health record into his practice.

Gudgel is one of the first doctors of chiropractic to receive the year one federal stimulus money. Gudgel used ACOM Health’s Rapid EHR software to successfully complete the Medicare attestation necessary to make application and receive the funding.

Under the Federal Government’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it set aside $19 billion to advance the adoption of electronic health records (EHR) among qualified providers. The plan intends to underwrite half of the nation’s qualified medical providers $44,000 each over five years to implement EHR if they qualify under the Medicare program or up to $66,000 under Medicaid. Chiropractors are eligible providers under the Act.

The government’s goal is to jumpstart EHR adoption in medical practices (including chiropractic). One reason is to improve patient safety and patient service. Studies point to thousands of deaths each year that can be attributed to contraindications of medication alone. Good EHR systems can help eliminate these kinds of medical errors by prompting a doctor with an alert if a medication is contraindicated for a particular patient.

Another reason to boost EHR is that full implementation can save billions of dollars each year in costs to the Medicare program. Providers simply are required to adopt a certified EHR program and meet HITECH’s Meaningful Use Criterion.

Gudgel, the lead instructor for Neuromechanical Innovations (NMI), incorporated ACOM Health’s Rapid EHR software in 2010 when NMI introduced ACOM at its nationwide clinical training seminars. ACOM Health received the necessary certification of an EHR system earlier this year and provided training on the requirements of meaningful use allowing Gudgel to complete his attestation for

2011 on Sept. 14, 2011.

It took only three weeks for Medicare to process his Attestation, and payment of $18,000 from Medicare was received Oct. 19. The EHR stimulus Medicare payment was based on 75 percent of the submitted allowable charges.

“For the chiropractic profession to be included in the HITECH Act is testimony to the mainstream acceptance of our profession on a national level,” said Dr. Chris Colloca, CEO of Neuromechanical Innovations. “Chiropractic care saves the Medicare system millions of dollars due to the effectiveness of the conservative care that adjustments provide” he added. NMI has always included Documentation and Record Keeping for compliance in its postgraduate curriculum, but changed vendors in 2009 to keep up to date with the changing Electronic Health Record landscape.

The $18,000 is not the last of the stimulus money that Gudgel’s clinic will receive benefit of. The maximum year one reimbursement that a provider is eligible for is $18,000, but that is per provider. Gudgel has three providers in his practice, and his associate doctor has also just successfully completed his attestation.

The clinic has received confirmation that an additional $18,000 is being processed at this time. Practices are eligible to receive $18,000 for each provider that qualifies in year one. Over the next four years, sliding scales will allow for maximum reimbursement of $12,000, $8,000, $4,000, and $2,000 for adopting a certified EHR program.

“We pride ourselves in trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to technology and I knew that electronic health records were here to stay,” said Gudgel. In the State of Minnesota, we already had to submit all of our claims, electronically. So, why not adopt a certified EHR sooner than later — now. With ACOM’s Rapid Software, we were able to easily implement our EHR with a certified system that helped us understand and implement the meaningful use requirement,” stated Gudgel.

Source: Neuromechanical Innovations, www.neuromechanical.com