Crain’s New York Business Looks to Manatt Healthcare Chair for HIT Analysis
“Federal HIT Funding Elusive for New Yorkers”
Crain’s New York Business, Crain’s Health Pulse
March 17, 2010 – An article in Crain’s New York Business discussing the potential impact on New York hospitals of the proposed federal health information technology bill included insight from William S. Bernstein, chair of Manatt’s national Healthcare Division.
The “meaningful use” definition in the proposed 600-page bill would be the basis for distributing millions of dollars of stimulus funding to hospitals and physician practices that meet the criterion in the definition of meaningful users of electronic health records.
According to the article, experts fear that, if the definition isn't revised, “the majority of New York hospitals would fail the rule's current ‘all-or-nothing’ test.”
Bernstein told Crain’s New York Business that the federal HIT bill is unquestionably complex. “All of this is embedded in hundreds of pages of legislation,” he says, “and there's a fair amount of interpretation of the rules.”