Electronic Health Reporter

eClinicalWorks, a leader in ambulatory healthcare IT solutions, today announces that the company has assisted approximately 5,000 Eligible Professionals (EPs) in meeting Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) requirements. Under the Medicare program, PQRS offers participating EPs the opportunity to assess the quality of care they are providing to their patients, helping to ensure that patients get the right care at the right time. CMS also provides benchmark reports that EPs can use to compare their performance on a given measure with their peers. Through eClinicalWorks Certified Registry Reporting Services, the company assists EPs looking to pursue this program.

Participation in the PQRS program has been growing significantly. In 2012, the latest year CMS has provided data publicly, participation increased by 36% from 2011. In fact, 435,931 of the 1,201,363 professionals who were eligible to participate in PQRS in 2012 did so. December 31 marks the deadline for submitting 2014 reporting data.

“Ohio County Family, Surgical, and Specialty Care pursued PQRS as a way to advance our practice,” said Eve Baker, Database Administrator for Ohio County. “We have utilized the PQRS assistance that eClinicalWorks offers for the last two years, and it has made this sometimes complex process of understanding and completing the requirements of the incentive program very simple for us. The new functionality of the dashboard is very helpful. We look forward to working with them again next year.”

eClinicalWorks supports PQRS and has increased its investment in the development of software solutions and consulting services to meet growing interest. eClinicalWorks is qualified for the 2014 reporting year by CMS as a Registry, and is also qualified as a 2014 Data Submission Vendor. eClinicalWorks also assists individual eligible professionals and Group Practice Reporting Organization (GPRO) to choose the right PQRS reporting method for their practice’s patient panel, resulting in the greatest likelihood for receiving an incentive and avoiding the payment adjustment.

“We’ve used eClinicalWorks’ PQRS registry services every year since it has been offered,” said Dr. Bradley Block of Block, Nation, Chase & Smolen Family Medicine. “Compiling, reviewing and reporting PQRS data for CMS using eClinicalWorks’ PQRS registry service is very fast and easy.  The staff is well versed in the product and provides great assistance. Between the humongous time saved by eClinicalWorks’ PQRS registry services and the financial incentive of avoiding future Medicare payment penalties for providers who do not currently submit PQRS data, it is a no-brainer to sign up for eClinicalWorks’ PQRS services. I would definitely highly recommend this service to any medical practice without reservation.”

2014 PQRS EHR Reporting

EPs that do not report PQRS data to CMS for 2014 not only will forego a 0.5% incentive of estimated Medicare Part B PFS allowed charges but will, more significantly, be subject to a 2.0% payment adjustment of Medicare PFS amount for services provided in 2016. Groups of 10 or more EPs that submit claims to Medicare under a single Tax Identification Number (TIN) will also be subjected to an additional negative 2.0% Value Modifier (VM) adjustment to 2016 payment under the PFS. There are many additional changes to the PQRS Program for 2014, including that there are nine measures required instead of three in order to earn an incentive.

“Quality reporting programs, including PQRS, offer medical providers a way to increase returns for quality initiatives,” said Girish Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks. “We support our customers in their pursuit of programs of this nature and have evolved our offerings to deliver optimal support and technology for the changing guidelines. Utilizing our services will ease the reporting process.”

eClinicalWorks PQRS suite of products and services now includes measure selection guidance based on specialty, assistance with data capture set-up and performance tracking to fulfill selected measure requirements, an analytics reporting module that provides drill-down visibility, and hands-free Registry Reporting (XML format) or Data Submission Vendor Reporting (QRDA III format) methods. These products and services aim to make it easier for healthcare organizations and individual providers to comply with the PQRS requirements and utilize the concept of pay-for-performance and quality reporting in the long term.

About eClinicalWorks

eClinicalWorks is a privately-held leader in ambulatory healthcare IT solutions. With physicians across all 50 states using its solutions, customers include ACOs, physician practices, out-patient departments of hospitals, health centers, departments of health and convenient care clinics. Ten eClinicalWorks customers have received the prestigious HIMSS Davies Awards during the past six years, honoring excellence in electronic health record implementation. The company is second largest in the country for e-prescribing. Based in Westborough, Mass., eClinicalWorks has additional offices in New York City, Chicago, California and Georgia. For more information, please visit www.eclinicalworks.com, Facebook, Twitter or call 866-888-6929.