Multi-Campus EHR Legislation Introduced in Congress - July 19, 2011

Reps. Michael Burgess, (R-Texas), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) last week introduced the Equal Access and Parity for Multi-Campus Hospitals Act (H.R. 2500). Currently, hospital systems with multiple campuses organized under a single Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) certification number can only receive a single electronic health record (EHR) incentive payment made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The proposed legislation aims to ensure that multi-campus hospitals are treated fairly and given opportunity to receive multiple EHR incentive payments, part of CMS’s strategy to encourage EHR implementation. The bill has gathered more than 50 bipartisan co-sponsors and specifies that the EHR incentive payments should go to each campus of a multi-campus hospital system, as long as each campus meets meaningful use requirements. In June, NAPH sent a support letter to the original sponsors and urged NAPH members to contact their congressional delegations and have their congressmen sponsor this bill.