09/25/2014    Michael L. Brody, DPM

Meaningful Use Measures 7 and 17

Meaningful Use Core Measure #7 requires that you
PROVIDE patients with the ability to view,
download and transmit their Health Information.
This is actually a 2-part measure. The first part
requires that you PROVIDE access. In order to do
this you only need to set up access to
the portal so that the patient may visit the
portal should they wish. It does NOT make a
difference if the patient actually visits the web
site to view, download or transmit their
information. You must set up access for over 50%
of your patients. This is simple and an
administrative task that can be assigned to the
front desk.

The second part of this measure is a bit more
onerous, and this is only applicable to Stage 2
of Meaningful Use. If you are still at Stage 1
this second part of the measure DOES NOT apply to
your practice. The second part is that 5% of the
patients or their authorized representative must
actually view, download, or transmit this
information. A previous post to this forum said
that the patient or their representative only
need to 'touch' the portal. That statement
may be misleading, if a patient visits the portal
but does not view, download or transmit any of
their health information then that visit
WILL NOT COUNT towards this measure.

So a patient must do more than just touch the
portal. If you portal is set up so that upon
logging into the portal, the patient is
immediately presented with their health
information, then as soon as that particular page
is rendered they have viewed the information.
But it is important to understand how your
portal is configured to make sure you can
properly educate your patients on use of the
portal.

I have found that some patients in my practice
are thrilled by this portal, including older
patients who are Internet savvy. By taking a
few minutes to educate my patients I have found
that the 5% threshold is not that difficult to
meet.

As far as your office becoming the designated
representative of the patient for this measure,
if you review the Federal Register you will
see that the purpose of this rule is to enhance
patient engagement. If your office acts as the
designated representative you have not taken
steps to enhance patient engagement.

Measure # 17 is a stage 2 measure Only and does
not apply to Stage 1 of Meaningful Use. Measure #
17 involves more than 5% of your patients using
that same portal to send a secure message to your
practice. So, not only does the patient have to
actually view, download or transmit the
information but now they must send your practice
a secure message. This will take some additional
education of your patients to meet this measure.

There are a couple of important points here.
First, you are not required to respond to the
secure message. Second, the message does
not need to be read by you, it can be read and
addressed by your staff. Third, the content of
the message is irrelevant. It can be something as
simple as the patient wishing you a happy new
year. As long as they utilize your portal (or
other technology that is associated with you EHR)
to send some sort of message to your practice.

Once again the purpose of this message is to
enhance patient engagement. In order to meet this
measure, I would encourage patients to use the
secure portal to request medication refills,
referral requests, and other administrative
services your practice provides.

If you were to change your on hold message to 'to
expedite your request for medication refills,
referral requests etc please visit your portal
and send us an electronic request. Electronic
requests are processed much more quickly than
hone messages' Not only will this help you to
meet this measure, but it could potentially allow
many of these requests to be handled much more
efficiently by your practice.

Michael L. Brody, DPM, Commack, NY,
mbrody@cmeonline.com

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