Exam Lane: EHR VisionWeb's I.O. View [SPONSORED]: The Latest Update on 2014 Meaningful Use Final Rule By Staff Wednesday, October 1, 2014 10:00 AM That's right, there have been more changes made to the Meaningful Use Incentive Program. Whether you've already started your Meaningful Use journey, or if you've been thinking about it for a while, read up! These Meaningful Use criteria updates are for you! If you want to read all the details of the new final Meaningful Use rule that was announced in September, you can read it here. Basically, the final rule grants more flexibility to providers who are unable to fully implement a 2014 Certified EHR for a reporting period in 2014, and pushes the start of Stage 3 to 2017, at the earliest. If you were unable to fully implement a 2014 Certified EHR in 2014 because your vendor didn't provide you with proper software, updates, or training, you now have more flexibility to use both 2011 and 2014 Certified EHR systems to attest to Meaningful Use this year. Find out what you can and cannot do with your system this year with the table below. Payment and penalties still remain the same! This year, 2014, is still the last year that providers can attest for the first time with the Incentive Program, and incentives are still based on 75 percent of the provider's billed Medicare, up to the maximum listed in the table above. If you missed the July 1, 2014 deadline to register for the Incentive Program you can still attest in the final quarter of 2014 (October 1 - December 31), and you are still eligible for the maximum $12,000 payment, but you're also still liable for the 1 percent penalty in 2015. In order for you to receive the maximum $12,000 payment, your total Medicare charges would have to be $16,000 or more. Providers who attest for the first time in 2015 will not receive any incentive payments, but could avoid penalties in 2016. Check out the following table to find out how long you should be attesting for each stage of the program. You'll also notice that Stage 3 has been pushed to 2017, which means that users who began participating in the program in either 2011 or 2012 will attest for Stage 2 again in 2016. There are a few things to note in the table above. When a reporting period is listed as 90 days that means you have to report for 90 consecutive days at any time within that year. When the reporting period is listed as 1 Quarter, you must start your reporting period on the first day of any quarter (January 1, April 1, July 1, October 1). This piece was contributed by the Uprise blog. Uprise is a cloud-based practice management and EHR solution by VisionWeb. View the original post here: The Latest Update on Meaningful Use Criteria.