Maryland EHR Incentives

I’m willing to bet you didn’t know about Maryland’s best kept EHR incentives secret: namely, six private insurers will pay up to $15,000 each to each Maryland practice that implements an EHR before 2014.  Here are some details about the program and where you can find further information about it.

There are six insurers that participate in this incentives program: Aetna, CareFirst, Cigna, Coventry, Kaiser Permanente, and United Healthcare.  Each insurer will pay up to $15,000 in two parts to participating providers.  Half the incentive is calculated based on the total number of Maryland patients either assigned to the practice as a PCP, or at $8 per member for each Maryland insured seen by the practice in the last 24 months.  So, if in two years, you treat 938 members of one of the six insurers, you can maximize the first part of the incentive payment.  The other half of the incentive is based on your ability to meet one of the following three criteria: (a) sign up with a state MSO, (b) demonstrate advanced use of your EHR, or (c) participate in a quality improvement initiative with the insurer.

To obtain the incentive payments, you first file an Incentive Application with the appropriate private insurer prior to December 21, 2014.  The insurer will then acknowledge your application.  Then, six months after the application, you submit a Payment Application to the insurer, who will adjudicate the claim in 60 days and make your incentive payment.  These incentives are per practice (rather than by individual physician or provider), however, these are in addition to any federal incentive payments your practice may qualify to receive from CMS under the Medicare or Medicaid programs through the HiTech Meaningful Use incentives.

You can read more about this on the MHCC web site here.