CMS to Unveil MU Attestation System on April 18

Physicians and hospitals will be able to access the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ web-based attestation system for meaningful use starting April 18.

In the attestation system, CMS says, providers will fill in numerators and denominators for the meaningful use objectives and clinical quality measures, indicate if they qualify for exclusions to specific objectives, and legally attest that they have successfully demonstrated meaningful use. Once providers have completed a successful online submission through the attestationsystem, they will qualify for a Medicare EHR incentive payment.

Registration for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program began on Jan. 3, 2011, and is available online at https://ehrincentives.cms.gov.

For the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, states are developing their own attestation systems. Providers can check the following website to see states' scheduled launch dates for their Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs: http://www.cms.gov/apps/files/medicaid-HIT-sites/.

If a hospital is eligible to participate in both the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, it must register for both, according to CMS.

CMS is working on a method that will allow a third party to register and attest for multiple physicians in large practices. However, currently there is no such method and eligible providers must register and attest themselves.