Does the ONC Have the Correct Priorities? - Essay Sample

Introduction

The office of the national coordinator has the correct and the required priorities as given out functionality structure. The main priority of the department is to establish and improve the existing electronic health record and its usability, to help in fostering improved health information and system interoperability within the United States healthcare organization. Even though the security plans and the privacy issues within the department also remains a top priority in the organization, they make it clear there are no plans to make changes in their chief office role. As an idea and a chance of improving the electronic health record usability, the most important priority of the office of the national coordinator (ONC) will still remain to assist and to help strip away several regulation and the various reporting requirements that generally overburden the healthcare system and at the same time take a lot of time from the patient. This stands out to be a very perfect priority in that it gives patients and healthcare officials easy time accessing several services within the department.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

With the changed in the reimbursement system, value-based service was replacing the fee-for-service payment to providers. Starting off 2019, providers that participated in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) since 2017 will see the payment adjustment for their incentives based on their performance. With this new system of reimbursement, I believe the Office of National Coordinator (ONC) have the correct priorities.

According to the National Coordinator for Health IT, Donald Rucker states that the ONC's mission going forward will focus on MACRA and Merits-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) (Slabodkin, 2017). MACRA is the new ways to pay for the physician based on the quality of care they provided. Under MACRA, physicians get reimbursement in two ways: MIPS and Alternative Payment Models (APMs). Under the structure of MIPS, the physician will be measure and pay based on quality, resource use, clinical practice improvement, and meaningful use of EHR. Under the APMs structure, providers will receive favorable scoring with a higher reimbursement rate. The office of the national coordinator will be working hand in hand with the team in reforming the electronic health together with the electronic requirement so that the medical practitioners may spend less time in searching and entry of data and get enough time to spend with the patients.

References

Morris-Stiff, G., Cheang, P., Key, S., Verghese, A., & Havard, T. (2008). Does the surgeon still have a role to play in the diagnosis and management of lymphomas?. World Journal Of Surgical Oncology, 6(1). doi: 10.1186/1477-7819-6-13

Slabodkin, G., (2017). Interoperability, the usability top priorities for ONC. Retrieved from https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/interoperability-ehr-usability-are-top-priorities-for-onc?feed=00000152-1262-da4c-af7b-56728d8c0000