June 13, 2011 — Sevocity Announces ARRA EHR Funding Eligibiilty Tool
San Antonio, TX — Sevocity, a division of Conceptual MindWorks, Inc. today announced interim findings from their free and easy-to-use online tool to help providers determine whether or not they are eligible for either the Medicare or Medicaid funding for Electronic Health Records. The tool is available at www.Sevocity.com/ehr-meaningful-use.
By answering only two to three questions, physicians and other providers can quickly determine whether or not they can qualify for either program.
“We conduct a webinar on the ARRA Program for Meaningful Use of EHRs monthly,” stated Catherine Huddle, VP Market Development for Sevocity. “In every session, the first question is ‘Can I qualify?’ and we realized after a quick search on the Internet that no tools were readily available to answer this question, so we created one,” added Huddle. While there are many documents available on eligibility for EHR Incentives, this new tool is interactive and very easy-to-use.
Since it was launched earlier this year, over 300 providers have used the new tool. In addition to assisting providers with determining their eligibility for EHR incentives, the tool includes a questionnaire. Results of the questionnaire offer insight into a provider’s eligibility, ARRA program knowledge and plans. Early results include:
— 41 percent of respondents expect to qualify for Medicaid EHR funding
Of those that do not qualify for the Medicaid EHR program, 58 percent expect to qualify for the maximum Medicare EHR funding. This results in a total of 75 percent expecting to qualify for at least one of the programs.
— 83 percent of providers qualifying for the funding expect to purchase an EHR:
— 50 percent expect to purchase the EHR within 30 days.
— 23 percent expect to purchase in 2-3 months.
— 21 percent expect to purchase in 4 – 12 months.
— 6 percent expect to purchase in 1 year or more.
— 13 percent of providers were not aware of the coming Medicare penalties for not using ePrescribing.
— 18 percent of providers were not aware of the Medicare penalties beginning in 2016 for not having meaningful use of EHR.
— In addition to funding, respondents cite 1) Better Workflow, 2) Accessibility of Records, and 3) More Legible Records as their top 3 reasons for implementing EHR.
Respondents were also asked, “What are the most important things an EHR provider can do to make EHR adoption and use easy for you?”
— “Affordable” and “Ability to Customize to the Practice and Providers” were the two factors cited most often by respondents as “Very Important.” Over 63 percent of respondents deemed both of these factors as “Very Important.”
— The least important factor cited was “Has Its Own Billing System.” Only 39 percent of respondents cited this as “Very Important” and 14 percent of respondents rated this as “Not Important.”
“The results reaffirm Sevocity’s vision and pricing model,” stated Huddle. “Sevocity was designed from the start to be easy to use and our development team continues to hold this as our primary goal in the development process.” “ Our pricing model is also very affordable and all-inclusive.” “We believe that it is in the customer’s long term interest to include standard HL7 interfaces, additional features and other items that most vendors typically add on to inflate costs,” added Huddle.
About Sevocity
Based in San Antonio, Texas, Sevocity empowers physician practices and health centers to embrace electronic health record (EHRs) by providing an easy-to-use, Internet-based electronic health record system. Because Sevocity EHR is an Internet-based (or cloud computing) product that provides secure access to clinical information via the Internet, practices and health centers avoid the expensive upfront capital expenditure and ongoing maintenance costs associated with client/server offerings. Sevocity’s customer agreement includes a commitment to certification and any other requirements for providers to receive EHR incentives under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA).
For more information about Sevocity, visit www.sevocity.com or call (877) 777-2298.