Bill calls for expanded EMR incentives for multi-campus hospitals

A bipartisan group of more than 50 House members went to bat earlier this week for multi-campus hospitals by sponsoring new legislation that would amend the way Medicare and Medicaid incentives are paid to those hospitals when adopting EMRs.

The bill--the Equal Access and Parity for Multi-Campus Hospitals Act (H.R. 2500)--specifies that EMR incentive payments should go to each campus of a multi-campus hospital system--as long as each campus meets the Meaningful Use requirements. Under current regulations, hospital systems with multiple campuses organized under a single Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) certification number receive only a single incentive payment.

This is not the first time legislation has emerged on this topic. Last year, bills were introduced in both the House and the Senate to expand the incentives to all hospitals in a multi-campus setting following comments from CMS that it would not change the current regulations. The bills were not approved by Congress.