In last month's column (see The Strategic View of Meaningful Use: Part 1,http://bit.ly/1KzmezO), we began to review the importance of understanding the penalties, and time frames for the penalties, imposed if Meaningful Use (MU) documentation was overlooked. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), starting in 2015, if you are an eligible provider and have not attested to MU of your electronic health record (EHR) for 2014, penalties are set to increase by 1% yearly for the next several years, ultimately topping out at 4% (http://go.cms.gov/1LbCPHa). After 2018, MU penalties will be folded into a new merit-based incentive payment system. In this column, and subsequent columns, we continue to review the CORE and MENU SET Objectives for MU Stage 1 and Stage 2 in the Table illustrated.1 I hope this review will assist you to move forward and comply with the CMS MU Program. Cheers to diligent documenting and strategic work flows!

Table. STAGE 1 VS STAGE 2 COMPARISON TABLE FOR ELIGIBLE PROFESSIONALS

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