Statement attributed to:
Steven J. Stack, MD
President Elect, American Medical Association
"The American Medical Association is pleased that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has decided to extend the deadline for eligible providers to attest to Meaningful Use, but is concerned that the program will still face low participation rates without substantial changes to its rigid requirements.
"Only 24 percent of physicians have attested to Meaningful Use for 2014 as of the beginning of February. The deadline extension underscores that the Meaningful Use program is not working and that policymakers need to act on our recommendations to make it more flexible, remove the measures that physicians are having the most difficulty in meeting and revamp the certification program so that electronic health record vendors can innovate to create products that better serve patients and physicians.
"We thank CMS for today's effort and hope that they will go further in addressing the problems with this program when they issue their Meaningful Use rules this spring."
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The American Medical Association is the physicians’ powerful ally in patient care. As the only medical association that convenes 190+ state and specialty medical societies and other critical stakeholders, the AMA represents physicians with a unified voice to all key players in health care. The AMA leverages its strength by removing the obstacles that interfere with patient care, leading the charge to prevent chronic disease and confront public health crises and, driving the future of medicine to tackle the biggest challenges in health care.
