5 Tips for Demonstrating Meaningful Use for Psychiatrists

Posted by David on 2 September 2011

1. Look at the CMS attestation work sheet, followed by any other recommended training from your EHR vendor. In my experience, there is nothing that reduces anxiety about meaningful use faster than walking through the attestation work sheet. It turns something amorphous, abstract, and sometimes overwhelming into something quite manageable and concrete. Try it; you’ll see what I mean.

2. Set up a training with your EHR Account Manager or Meaningful Use consultant. If your EHR vendor does not have experts on meaningful use for psychiatry, try other vendors and see if they will help you even though you are not using their product.

3. Develop a strategy before you start with your Account Manager

a. Know which core, if any, for which you will attest to an exclusion. Some psychiatrists will attest to exclusion on the vital signs measure (page 2, #8 on the attestation worksheet).

b. Decide how you will handle quality measures. It makes a difference whether or not you bill E&M codes (992xx codes) as it will have an impact on which denominators are zero. CMS has been quite clear that it’s OK to have zero denominators. They are not monitoring quality but rather reporting of quality measures. This one is easier than you think.

c. Know your “no brainers” in the menu measures and choose your discretionary menu items. You need to attest to 5 out of 10 menu measures and we’ve identified 4 that will be easy. We call them the “no brainers”. Out of the remaining six, 3 are “discretionary” and 3 are a little harder. Your Account Manager can help you decide which of the discretionary you’ll want to track and attest to. It’s as simple as that!

d. Make work flow adjustments. The most difficult core measure will probably be the requirement to give a clinical summary for 50% or more of visits. Decide how you want to accomplish this early on and then make sure that your system is working with the help of your Account Manager.

4. Monitor progress on a weekly basis and set up biweekly check-ins with your Account Manager. Think of your Account Manager as your “Meaningful Use coach.” You will be grateful for the structure and extra help.

5. Seek help if you are not hitting your targets. You should be able to see this in the EHR’s meaningful use report. Your Account Manager will help you identify the problem in areas where you are falling short of the target and brainstorm solutions with you. At times you may both need to get creative in areas where you consistently fall short of the target.

Good luck with demonstrating meaningful use! Please let me know how it goes.