Starting in 2011 physicians can receive payments totaling up to $44,000 from Medicare if they can demonstrate that their electronic health record system is operating within in the “meaningful use” standards. Unfortunately, the burden of responsibility for the monitoring and reporting of the  electronic health records “meaningful use” falls solely on the physicians. Just installing and using the electronic health record system is not enough, once the system is in place there are several steps and mounds of reports and paperwork necessary to claim the HITECH money.

Not helping matters is that the definition of “meaningful use” is influx and subject to changes or refinements. This puts an enormous burden on the doctors how do they stay on top of this in addition to everything else? Until now software vendors simply stated that their electronic health record product would work, and have all the proper functionality making sure the functions are working properly and engaging in meaningful use falls to the doctor.

Athenahealth is the first software vendor to see a market in providing a product that not only complies with the HITECH but also takes care of the monitoring and reporting for the physician. They also help the physician enroll in the program. Athena has a National Clinical Intelligence Team whose sole purpose is to monitor the “meaningful use” requirements and the pay for performance programs and integrate any changes into the software. In the future, more and more vendors may see the benefit in adding this service to their electronic health care packages.