SANTA FE, NM – Washington and New Mexico Medicaid programs will receive thousands of dollars in 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.

Washington will receive about $967,000 and New Mexico about $405,000 for the EHR planning work,

the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the award Tuesday.

The federal stimulus law 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.

"We congratulate Washington and New Mexico for qualifying for these federal matching funds to assist its plan for implementing the Recovery Act's EHR incentive program," said Cindy Mann, director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations at CMS. "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."

The two states will use its federal matching funds for planning activities that include conducting a comprehensive analysis to determine the current status of healthcare IT activities.

As part of that process, Washington and New Mexico will gather information on issues such as existing barriers to the use of EHRs, provider eligibility for EHR incentive payments, and the creation of state Medicaid healthcare IT plans, which will define the vision for long-term use of healthcare IT.