Medicaid incentive payments to hospitals for achieving meaningful use of electronic health records received $1.7 billion during 2011 under that program, a Government Accountability Office report says.According to Nextgov, GAO also found more hospitals wanted to participate in the Medicaid EHR incentive program over a similar program for Medicare.
Auditors also found the Medicaid incentive program had three times the amount of participants compared to the Medicare incentive program, according to John Pulley’s story.
Overall, 1,964 hospitals received payments between $7,528 and $7.2 million and half of those hospitals received 80 percent of distributed incentive payments, the report said.
Ninety-seven percent of medical professionals received the maximum payment of $21,250, according to the report.
