In the 2004 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush said, “Over the next 10 years, electronic health records (EHRs) will ensure that comprehensive health care information is available to most Americans. at the time and place of care (US government).” To encourage widespread implementation of EHRs and address financial barriers to such implementation, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 set aside $27 billion of dollars in incentives to be distributed over a ten-year period for hospitals and healthcare providers to adopt meaningful use of EHRs (Encinosa, 2013). In 2011, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) implemented the Meaningful Use (MU) Incentive Program. To be eligible for incentive payments under MU, providers must annually certify that they meet specific quality measure thresholds, consisting of three stages with increasing requirements at each stage. The Meaningful Use Incentive Program was designed to ensure that EHRs are implemented and used appropriately. way by increasing the quality of health care while reducing health care costs. However, it is important to determine whether the Meaningful Use Incentive Program is working properly because in 2015, if Medicare Eligible Providers (EPs) do not transition to EHRs, they will be penalized by reducing their fee schedule by 1, 5% and 2% for DSEs. subsequent years (CMS, 2014). More generally, this topic is also important for healthcare administrators who have not yet invested in an EHR, because if the Meaningful Use Incentive Program works in a way that reduces costs and improve patient care, implementing an EHR should do the same. provided you follow the MU program. Additionally, provide...... middle of paper....../Payment-Adjustment-Information.htmlEncinosa, WE and Jaeyong, B. (2013). Will Meaningful Use of Electronic Medical Records Reduce Hospital Costs?. American Journal of Managed Care, 19eSP19-eSP25. Furukawa, M. (2011). Electronic medical records, efficiency and productivity during office visits. American Journal of Managed Care, 17(4), 296-303.Government. (nd). A new generation of American innovation. The White House. Accessed May 1, 2014, from http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/technology/nomic_policy200404/chap3.htmlMedical Mutual. (nd). Health Care Costs in the United States: Health Expenditure Report. Medical mutual. Tjia, J., Field, TS, Fischer, SH, Gagné, SJ, Peterson, DJ, Garber, LD and Gurwitz, JH (2011). Measuring the quality of medication monitoring in the “Sense of Use” era. American Journal of Managed Care, 17(9), 633-637.