BALTIMORE – Six states and the District of Columbia are the latest to receive federal matching funds for state planning activities necessary to implement the electronic health record incentive program established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the awards earlier this week:

• Connecticut will receive $695,000;
• Delaware will receive $247,000;
• Indiana will receive $2.31 million;
• New Hampshire will receive $335,000;
• Rhode Island will receive $401,000;
• West Virginia will receive $945,000; and
• The District of Columbia will receive $817,000

The Recovery Act provides a 90 percent federal match for state planning activities to administer the incentive payments to Medicaid providers, to ensure their proper payments through audits and to participate in statewide efforts to promote interoperability and meaningful use of EHR technology statewide and, eventually, across the nation.

The states and the District of Columbia will use the federal matching funds for planning activities that include conducting a comprehensive analysis to determine the current status of health IT activities in their region.  As part of that process, they will gather information on issues such as existing barriers to use of EHRs, provider eligibility for EHR incentive payments, and the creation of a state Medicaid health IT plan, which will define the vision for long-term health IT use.

Cindy Mann, director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations at CMS, congratulated the states on qualifying to receive the funding.

"Meaningful and interoperable use of EHRs in Medicaid will increase healthcare efficiency, reduce medical errors and improve quality-outcomes and patient satisfaction within and across the states," she said.

Currently CMS has allocated funding to 39 other states and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.