News from MeHI
February 2020
MeHI Announces Price Is Your Right
Design Challenge Winners
Last fall, MeHI partnered with the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA), the Donaghue Foundation, Harvard Medical School's Department of Health Care Policy, and Freedman HealthCare to sponsor the Price Is Your Right design challenge. Participants were asked to design a prototype for a mobile app or website to present healthcare cost data in an easy-to-use format, allowing patients to make more informed decisions about where to get their care .
The challenge partners are proud to announce the grand prize winners! Congratulations to the winners and many thanks to all who participated.
Professional Grand Prize Winner:  
Student Grand Prize Winner: 
Medicaid Updates
Program Year 2019 Deadline
Extended to April 30, 2020
The updates required to allow MAPIR to accept Stage 3 MU applications are not yet fully implemented. We are working with the MAPIR team and anticipate MAPIR readiness by the end of the month.
 
Due to this unforeseen delay, CMS has extended the Program Year 2019 deadline to April 30, 2020 . All Eligible Professionals (EP) will have a few extra weeks to review the supporting documentation guidelines and complete the attestation process. Please note that although the document deadlines have passed, providers should submit any outstanding documents as soon as possible.

MeHI will send an announcement to all Medicaid Incentive Program participants as soon as MAPIR is ready.
In the meantime, we recommend using our 2019 Supporting Documentation Guide to organize your supporting documentation and prepare for attestation. Visit the   MU Toolkit   for the most up-to-date tools and resources, and reach out to our Technical Assistance (TA) Team with any questions.  
Please note that any PY2019 applications launched prior to full implementation of the updates will need to be aborted and re-launched. We advise EPs and designees to hold off on launching any applications until all MAPIR updates have been implemented.
Are You Maximizing
Your EHR Incentive Payments?
Did You Know...
...that Eligible Professionals (EPs) who participated in the Medicaid program with a previous employer can earn EHR incentives with their new organization? If yo u are unsure about the status of any of your providers, just forward a list of names and NPIs to massEHR@masstech.org and we'll let you know who qualifies.

...that participating EPs who were unable to successfully attest for one or more previous Program Years (PYs) can resume their participation in PY 2019 without penalty? While they can't earn an incentive for skipped year(s), they can pick up right where they left off and earn incentives for the remaining Program Years, up to a total of six incentive payments. The EHR Incentive Payment Program sunsets in PY2021. 
...that EPs who have earned incentives in the Medicaid EHR Incentive program can also participate in the Medicare Quality Payment Program (QPP), including the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)? The requirements of the Medicaid program are similar to the MIPS Promoting Interoperability requirements. If you serve both Medicare and Medicaid patients, we encourage you to take advantage of both programs.
Events
Process Improvement Workshop
Join us for a free Process Improvement Workshop to improve Meaningful Use (MU), health information exchange (HIE), and other clinical care practices.
 
The workshop will provide you with broadly applicable tools to improve your MU and HIE practices and workflows. You'll engage in discussions to share your own experiences, team-building activities to get to know the other participants, and hands-on exercises to address process challenges of interest to the group.
The workshop consists of  two in-person sessions  at MeHI's conference center in Westborough, MA. A light breakfast and lunch will be served. As the first session prepares you for the second, we advise you to attend both.
Thursday, April 30
9:00am-3:30pm

Thursday, May 7
9:00am-3:30pm
Opportunities
Spring 2020 Learning Collaborative
MeHI's Learning Collaboratives provide forums for participants to address challenging healthcare topics by sharing their experiences and developing innovative resources designed to help the healthcare community. MeHI hosts the Learning Collaboratives based on topics identified in cooperation with participants.
This spring, we will host a Learning Collaborative series focused on staff training and patient education on health information exchange. During the sessions, we will address getting referral staff on board with using HIE, discussing electronic data sharing with patients, and addressing patients’ concerns with sharing sensitive health data. We will also revisit some of the issues tackled during our Fall 2016 session , which resulted in several tools to facilitate information sharing.  
Our goal for the Spring 2020 series is to address the complex and ever-evolving regulatory landscape with a focus on educating patients: how their sensitive health data is protected, and how and when it may be shared. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact Lis Renczkowski at renczkowski@masstech.org .  
Thursday, May 21
10:00am-3:00pm

Thursday, June 4
10:00am-3:00pm
Mass HIway Updates
Provider Directory 2.0
In 2019, the Mass HIway migrated all its clients to a greatly enhanced version of the Massachusetts Health Information Exchange, known as HIway 2.0. The new platform aligns the HIway with the latest interoperability standards.
 
HIway 2.0 comes with a more advanced Provider Directory (PD 2.0), which makes it easier to look up providers with whom you may need to share health information. The Mass HIway team is asking for your assistance to ensure that PD 2.0 is accurate and robust. If providers in your organization use a HIway Direct address, it is critical that they are listed in the Mass HIway Provider Directory.
 
For more information, please review the Provider Directory 2.0 page . If you have additional questions regarding this process, please contact your HIway Account Manager, or send an email to masshiway@state.ma.us .
Spotlight Story: Natick Walpole VNA
Since its creation over a hundred years ago, Natick Walpole Visiting Nurse Association (Natick Walpole VNA) h as become a leading provider of community-based certified home health care in the region, offering a variety of services within patients’ homes: nursing, physical therapy, speech therapy, palliative care, and more.

Natick Walpole VNA regularly receives discharge summaries for patients from its trading partners. In the past, those summaries were faxed between facilities, often leading to issues with legibility and timeliness. To combat this and other issues, Maples Rehab, one of Natick Walpole VNA’s trading partners, transitioned to electronic exchange of discharge summaries via the Mass HIway.
 
With support from the Mass HIway team, Natick Walpole VNA successfully started receiving Maples' discharge summaries electronically. Learn more about how the new workflow is helping Natick Walpole VNA provide quality care to all of their patients, and how they hope to expand this new workflow to additional partners.