Iowa’s Medicaid program is set to receive approximately $1.16 million in matching funds, making it the first to collect on federal funding from the ARRA EHR incentive program, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Baltimore).
Iowa will use the funds to conduct analysis to determine the current status of HIT activities in the state. As part of the process, the state will gather information on issues such as existing barriers to its use of EHRs, provider eligibility for EHR incentive payments and the creation of a State Medicaid HIT Plan, which will define its vision for its long-term HIT use.
The state also plans to so use funding to assess expectations of its incentive payment recipients and their need for PHRs.
The Recovery Act provides a 90 percent federal match for state planning activities to administer the incentive payments to Medicaid providers to ensure proper payments through audits and to participate in efforts to promote interoperability and meaningful use of EHR technology. For more information on implementation of the Medicaid-related provisions of the Recovery Act’s EHR incentive payment program, click here.
