Objective 8 – Patient Electronic Access

Patient Electronic Access – Objective 8

About this Objective: Provide patients the ability to view online, download, and transmit their health information within 4 business days of the information being available to the EP.

Measure:

EP’s must satisfy both measures in order to meet this objective:

• Measure 1: More than 50% of all unique patients seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period are provided timely access to view online, download, and transmit to a third party their health information subject to the EP’s discretion to withhold certain information.
• Measure 2: For an EHR reporting period in 2016, at least one patient seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period (or patient-authorized representative) views, downloads or transmits his or her health information to a third party during the EHR reporting period.

Exclusions:

• Measure 1: Neither orders nor creates any of the information listed for inclusion as part of the measures except for “Patient Name” and “Provider’s name and office contact information.”
• Measure2:
  1. Neither orders nor creates any of the information listed for inclusion as part of the measures except for “Patient Name” and “Provider’s name and office contact information;”
  2. Conducts 50% or more of his or her patient encounters in a county that does not have 50% or more of its housing units with 4Mbps broadband availability according to the latest information available from the FCC on the first day of the EHR reporting period.

Report Calculation :

Denominator: Distinct Patients who have a visit within the report date range with the provider selected that isn’t a “Message” or “Form”

Numerator: Distinct Patients in the Denominator that have had a CCR/CCDA sent to the portal within 4 days of the DOS.

ChartLogic Tip: You must have the ChartLogic patient portal setup to meet this objective.

Additional Information:

• Providers should be aware that while meaningful use is limited to the capabilities of CEHRT to provide online access there may be patients who cannot access their EHRs electronically because of a disability. Providers who are covered by civil rights laws must provide individuals with disabilities equal access to information and appropriate auxiliary aids and services as provided in the applicable statutes and regulations.
• For Measure 1, patient health information needs to be made available to each patient for view, download, and transmit within 4 business days of the information being available to the provider for each and every time that information is generated whether the patient has been “enrolled” for three months or for three years.
• A patient who has multiple encounters during the EHR reporting period, or even in subsequent EHR reporting periods in future years, needs to be provided access for each encounter where they are seen by the EP.
• If a patient elects to “opt out” of participation, that patient must still be included in the denominator.
• For Measure 2, the patient action may occur before, during or after the EHR reporting period but must take place no earlier than the start of the same calendar year as the EHR reporting period and no later than the date of attestation in order to count in the numerator.

How to meet this Objective:

• Measure 1 – There are 2 ways to meet this measure.
  1. The provider must Save & Finish his exam notes 50% of the time within 4 days from the day the exam was opened. (Business days are not counted, so for a patient seen on a Friday, the note must be saved & finished by Tuesday to count for the measure.)
  2. The practice must manually send a CCDA to the patient within 4 days from the day the exam was opened. To do this from the ChartLogic Main screen, Click Patient > Send > Patient Information (CCDA)

• Measure 2– One patient must log into the patient portal and View, Download, or Transmit any of their patient data.

CMS Information

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