CMS has announced that both Tennessee and Pennsylvania’s Medicaid programs will receive federal matching funds to use for state planning activities necessary to implement their electronic health record incentives programs. The funding will provide Tennessee with $2.7 million and Pennsylvania will receive $1.42 million.
The Recovery Act provides a 90 percent federal match for state planning activities to use to administer incentive payments to Medicaid providers, to ensure proper payments through audits, and to enable states to participate in efforts to promote interoperability and the meaningful use of EHR technology statewide.
Both states will use their federal matching funds for planning activities that will be used to conduct a comprehensive analysis to determine the current status of HIT activities in their state. Also, both states will use the funding to gather information on existing barriers to using EHRs, to determine provider eligibility for EHR incentive payments, and for the creation of their individual state Medicaid HIT plan to define their state’s vision for the long term use of HIT.
