Last Friday, April 10, was a good day.

In a welcome yet delayed move, CMS finally announced its proposed rule to simplify its Meaningful Use program. While many Healthcare pundits are praising CMS for its sensitivity to physician concerns, I believe this decision had more to do with rescuing the program from its imminent failure-as more and more physicians willingly opted out of it due to its unnecessary complexity.

Whatever the reason, giving the devil his due, the program looks much more doable if these amendments are indeed finalized and put into effect-something we will find out in the last quarter of this year.

So what is the whole hullaballoo about.

• The reporting period for 2015, which was slated to be 365 days, would be reduced to any 90 days of the calendar year.
• Patient engagement measures have been relaxed.

a) Where previously, the threshold for exchanging secure messages with patients was 5%, now just the ability to send secure messages will be enough. Essentially, having an EHR Certified to the 2014 Stage 2 standards will get you a passing grade on this measure.

b) In addition the Patient Action to View, Download, or Transmit Health Information measure where the previous threshold was 5 percent; threshold for Stage 2  requires that just 1 patient seen by the provider during the EHR reporting period views, downloads, or transmits his or her health information to a third party.

• Measures that have become redundant, duplicative or have reached a very high performance level have been removed. Providers will no longer need to attest to these measures.

• Stage 1 and Stage 2 providers will attest to the same measures. However, by using the new exception rules and lower threshold levels than stage 2 providers, stage 1 has been simplified.

The detailed proposal can be accessed here.

While this proposal means less work for physicians, EHR vendors have their work cut out this year. They will have to ensure modification to their systems by updating their Meaningful Use Report Cards and the measurement period options in their software. These changes will come at a time when EHR vendors would be preparing their software to meet 2015 CCHIT certification to remain on track for Meaningful Use stage 3.

On a separate note, this is a good time to reflect on your vendor’s ability to achieve timely certifications. The speed at which the healthcare landscape is changing; imagine ICD-10, Meaningful Use stage 1 and 2 changes, preparation for Meaningful Use stage 3- timely certifications should become one of the most important factors influencing your buying decision. Do read this excellent EHR vendor analysis by Mr. Sean Parker for a commentary on Top EHR vendors in the industry.

For novices to the Meaningful Use program, feel free to download our guide to Meaningful Use.