WASHINGTON – A new bipartisan bill aims to ensure that multi-campus hospitals that employ and show meaningful use of health IT systems receive incentive payments that reflect the higher costs of implementation.

Rep. Pete Stark, chair of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, joined Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), along with Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee chair Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), and Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) in introducing the Electronic Health Record Incentives for Multi-Campus Hospitals Act of 2010.

Multi-campus hospital systems have incremental acquisition, training and implementation costs when adopting health IT systems. The legislation clarifies that the health IT incentives in the Recovery Act should address these costs and offers choices for how the campuses receive the incentive payments, reflecting differences between large and small multi-campus hospital systems.

The meaningful use rule published July 13 provides only one payment for multi-campus hospitals, treating them as if they were only one hospital, a method that the American Hospital Association, Premier healthcare alliance – and others - have called unfair.

The American Hospital Association supports the bill and said so in a letter to Space.

"We applaud today's action that would make clear the intent of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to provide payment incentives in an equitable way to individual hospitals that are part of multi-campus hospital systems," wrote AHA Executive Vice President Richard Pollack.

The legislation has bipartisan support from more than 30 members of the committees on Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce, including Ways and Means Committee Chair Sander Levin (D-Mich.), Energy and Commerce Chair Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), and Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Emeritus John D. Dingell (D-Mich.).

"This legislation is important for hospitals in my district and across the state of Ohio, who haven't been getting their fair share of recovery dollars," said Space. "This bill will help our hospitals advance their technology, improve the quality of care, and better serve their patients."

"The health IT incentives in the Recovery Act will bring our healthcare system into the 21st century, saving money and saving lives," said Stark. "This legislation will ensure that the incentives better address the costs faced by multi-campus hospitals to promote adoption of health IT systems at these facilities."