Senate panel asking for delay of Stage 3 MU

Editor's Note

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is asking for a delay of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Stage 3 meaningful-use rules, which providers say are costly and time-consuming.

Stage 3 requires providers to send electronic summaries for 50% of patients they refer to other providers, receive summaries for 40% of patients that are referred to them, and reconcile past patient data with current reports for 80% of patients.

The concern is that this stage differs from the others in the degree to which a provider must depend on others. If one provider does not send electronic summaries, the provider who was supposed to receive them will fail to comply with the rule.

The Senate finance committee will likely push for the delay of finalization and implementation of the CMS' Stage 3 meaningful-use rules, according to its chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). "We want to keep going forward [with the adoption of EHRs], no one wants to turn back," Alexander said during a press briefing with reporters Thursday.