More States Begin Efforts to Implement Medicaid HIT Incentive Payments - May 5, 2010

On April 26, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that four new states and one territory will receive federal matching funds for administrative costs to implement the Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) incentive payment program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The new states and one territory: Missouri, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Oregon, and Washington join a growing list of others which have all obtained approval and a 90% federal match for proposed state planning activities. As laid out in more detail in CMS' proposed rule, states must complete a series of planning activities before they can begin making incentive payments—which could be available as early as the last quarter of fiscal year 2010 in fast-acting states. For more information, please refer to NAPH’s webinar presentation on the issue.