CMS EHR incentive payments reach $4.5B

Government HealthIT, April 20, 2012

BEI Commentary: Here are the current statistics on the number of physicians registered for Meaningful Use and collecting incentive payments.

The Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record program has paid $4.5 billion to 76,612 physicians and hospitals in incentive payments through March 2012.

Of that amount, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services paid out $339.9 million for Medicare eligible providers, according to its latest data.

Fewer Medicare physicians attested and received payments in March than the previous month because the end of February was the cut-off date to be considered part of calendar 2011. However, the 8,651 physicians in March was an increase over January’s 7,668 doctors who received incentives. In February, 12,356 Medicare physicians obtained their payments. The number of hospitals that collected Medicare incentives, however, continued to increase in March to 115 from 84 in February. Read More