Welcome to the S.C. Medicaid Promoting Interoperability Program Website

The Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program has been renamed the “Promoting Interoperability (PI) Program”. Please note that this rebranding does not merge or combine the Medicaid PI Program and MIPS. Eligibility requirements  remain the same; eligible Medicare professionals who participate in MIPS may also participate in the Medicaid PI Program and receive a separate incentive payment. Incentive payments will end after 2021, so there is still limited time to take advantage of this opportunity and be rewarded for your EHR usage!

The PI Program continues to provide incentive payments to Eligible Professionals (EPs) and Eligible Hospitals (EHs) who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology and submit an attestation using the State Level Repository (SLR) . The individual EP attests for his/her achievement of the program requirements. Incentive payments may be received by the EP, or an entity which has a contractual arrangement to bill for the EP’s covered professional services. Incentive payment assignment is done via the  CMS registration system  .

EP incentives are $8500 per individual EP, per attestation; a reduced incentive amount is available to pediatricians if they are unable to meet certain requirements. Individual EPs are eligible to receive six (6) incentive payments from the Medicaid PI Program, up to $63,750. Participation in another incentive or quality program, such as MIPS, does not count toward these maximums. Practices/ organizations who are the designated “Payee” for their collective individual EP incentive payments have no limit on the amount they may receive. As an EP, if you are trying to receive the maximum $63,750, you should be meeting meaningful use and attesting each program year, since incentive payments will end after 2021.

What are the Meaningful Use (MU) requirements I need to meet during CY2018 to receive an incentive payment?

For program year (PY) 2018, EPs and EHs have the option to meet Modified Stage 2, or Stage 3, Meaningful Use requirements. In order to attest to Stage 3, EPs must have certified EHR technology (CEHRT) that is certified to the 2015 edition, or to a combination of the 2015 Edition and 2014 Edition as long as the combination would not prohibit the EP from meeting the Stage 3 measures. However, an EP who has technology certified to the 2014 Edition only, may not attest to Stage 3 and would need to attest to Modified Stage 2. Check what edition your CEHRT is certified to via this link .

If you are eligible for both stages, please review and determine which stage is most applicable:

• Eligible Professionals(EPs): Modified Stage 2 PY2018 MU requirements here  and Stage 3 here .
• Eligible Hospitals(EHs): Modified Stage 2 PY2018 MU requirements here  and the Stage 3 here .

When should I be performing my Meaningful Use actions? (EHR reporting period is a minimum of any continuous 90-day period in CY2018)

For program year 2018, EPs select a minimum of any continuous 90-day EHR reporting period from within Jan. 1, 2018 and Dec. 31, 2018. EPs should be tracking or planning their progress toward meeting the measures with their vendors and via their EHR reports. If an EP did not meet meaningful use for the 90-day period they initially selected, they may select another. Since the EHR reporting period doesn’t end until Dec. 31, 2018 for PY2018, you still have time to meet the requirements.

Some meaningful use measures allow qualifying actions to be performed outside of the 90-day period selected. This helpful guide explains which Meaningful Use requirements provide this flexibility.

If you are unable to meet certain Meaningful Use requirements, you may exclude them if eligible. Excluding Meaningful Use requirements will still allow you to receive an incentive payment and will not reduce the incentive payment amount.

What if I see patients at locations without Certified Electronic Health Record Technology (CEHRT)?

During the selected 90-day period, at least 50% of the EP’s patient encounters must have occurred at a location or locations that were equipped* with CEHRT to be considered a meaningful user.

*Equipped with CEHRT would include:

• CEHRT could be permanently installed at the practice/location.
• The EP could bring CEHRT to the practice/location on a portable computing device.
• The EP could access CEHRT remotely using computing devices at the practice/location

EPs calculate their meaningful use data only using data from their practice locations equipped with CEHRT for their chosen continuous 90-day period.

However, EPs can choose to include patient encounter data in their meaningful use measure numerators and denominators from locations where they did not have access to CEHRT (including locations with CEHRT not capable of meeting meaningful use) as long as this encounter data was later entered into CEHRT capable of meeting meaningful use at another location. If EPs in this scenario did not later enter encounter data into CEHRT capable of meaningful use, then the EPs should not include the encounter data in the numerators or denominators of their meaningful use measures. Locations not equipped with CEHRT should not be included in meaningful use calculations unless specified above.

How do I submit an attestation to receive incentive payments for demonstrating Meaningful Use?

Step #1 (Check your eligibility and obtain/ retrieve your CMS Registration ID)

If you have not already done so, EPs, EHs, or representatives who wish to attest on their behalf, must first register with CMS by clicking the following link: CMS Registration System   [click the continue button and follow the instructions]. Once you complete your registration, you will receive your CMS Registration ID. You will then need to navigate to the SLR  and enter your CMS Registration ID and your individual National Provider Identifier (NPI) to login.

If you have already registered with CMS but do not know your CMS Registration ID, please login to the CMS Registration System by clicking this link  to retrieve it. Note: The CMS Registration System is a separate system. The CMS Registration System and the SLR require different login credentials. You cannot submit a Medicaid PI attestation via CMS; you must submit through the SLR  .

Step #2  Login to the SLR  to attest – The SLR is not yet accepting PY2018 attestations. Please refer back to this website for updates on when you may submit your attestation.)