We’re excited to share the news that Echo customer, Grand Lake Mental Health Center, of Nowata, OK, is the first Behavioral Health provider to receive Meaningful Use incentive dollars. This is really big, as this proves the payments are for real and that Behavioral Health organizations can get the funding just like ambulatory providers can.
Read more about Grand Lake’s funding success here.
I see in the article that the GLMHC received the funds under the Medicaid program. Were these funds awarded for attesting to reaching stage 1 requirements for meaningful use, or are they simply AIU (Adopt/Implement/Upgrade) dollars? I ask because Medicaid’s AIU program does not require the eligible professionals to actually reach meaningful use in the first program year, it simply pays-out based on the fact that they adopted, implemented or upgraded to a certified EHR technology. Just curious since the first possible “attestation” period was April 18th. I’d be really surprised if the providers received their checks within a week of attesting.
Hi Zachary,
they are AIU dollars, which still required them to provide 90 days of proof of at least 30% Medicaid dollars. For Medicaid, there is no reporting period for the first year that is necessary. That’s why Medicaid providers have been eligible to get paid since January and some already have, although they were not behavioral health providers before Grand Lake. Grand Lake will do their first MU attestation of reporting the measures in 2012. They are still the first behavioral health provider to receive any payments, which is huge. It proves to the whole behavioral health market that the funds are there for them too, it’s not just something for the medical world.
-Paul