Hospital leaders with advanced health information technology systems will be approaching a decision deadline in the coming weeks: whether to reach now for the golden ring of federal IT incentive payments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or wait one more year.
At stake are first-round payments in what eventually could be a multibillion-dollar Medicare electronic health-record incentive program.
But what sounds like a no-brainer at first pass—to go for the money now—is a decision that's a lot more weighty and complex, with both risks and rewards even for those well-equipped organizations that have sufficient IT capabilities in place to qualify now for payments under Medicare's meaningful-use criteria.