CMS awards state Medicaid IT planning grants
By John Moore
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services today awarded $16 million in matching funds among six states and the U.S. Virgin Islands to help them plan their systems and processes for the upcoming task of managing electronic health record incentive payments.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s HITECH provisions offer incentives of up to $63,750 over six years for Medicaid providers who can demonstrate meaningful use of EHR.
State Medicaid offices, not the federal CMS agency, will manage the incentive payments to Medicaid providers in their state.
The $16 million in funding announced today involves a separate ARRA funding stream, which provides a 90 percent federal match for state planning activities. The Medicaid incentive payments are expected to begin in 2011.
States receiving funds Wednesday include California ($2.48 million), Georgia ($3.17 million), Idaho ($142,000), Montana ($239,000), New York ($5.91 million), Texas ($3.86 million), and the U.S Virgin Islands ($232,000). Those states join Iowa, which received CMS planning funds last month.
To qualify for the matching funds, states must demonstrate, among other things, that it “uses the funds for purposes of administering the incentive payments including the tracking of meaningful use of certified EHR technology by Medicaid providers,” according to CMS’ September letter to state Medicaid directors.
