As of the end of 2011, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had paid $2.534 billion in federal incentive payments to hospitals and physicians who have met stage 1 meaningful use criteria in the adoption of electronic health records.
Robert Tagalicod, director of CMS' Office of eHealth Standards and Services, and Robert Anthony and Jessica Kahn, from the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), made the announcement at an HIT Policy Committee meeting held on January 10 in Washington, DC.
Hospitals received the bulk of the payment; physicians and physician practices received approximately $570 million. The federal incentive payments and funding were created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
More than 2,800 hospitals became active meaningful use registrants during 2011. There were nearly 173,000 eligible providers; of these, 124,000 had registered as providing services to Medicare patients and 49,000 as providing services to Medicaid patients.
