Meaningful Use: An Update on the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program for Urologists

Meaningful use is a federal incentive program designed to stimulate the adoption of health information technology and improve the quality of care delivery in the United States. This article provides a specialty specific perspective to clarify program details and review participation for the specialty of urology.

Publicly available documents from CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), including program materials, participation and payment data, were reviewed to construct this narrative as well as statistics on adoption in urology.

Details of eligibility, participation, certification, attestation and payment are presented. Since program inception, 4,700 unique urologists have received payments totaling $95,864,021 or 2.4% of program payments. Of urologists who received payment for program year 2011, 14.8% did not receive a payment for program year 2012. Of eligible urologists 47.2% successfully attested for meaningful use in 2012.

Meaningful use has stimulated the adoption of health information technology and about half of all eligible urologists have participated. There was a significant dropout rate in program year 2012 compared to 2011.