Single Source Procurement: Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentive Program

Pursuant to New York State Finance Law § 163.10(b), The New York State Department of Health is presenting the following summary of relevant circumstances, and material and substantial reasons why a competitive procurement was not feasible.

The New York State Department of Health, Office of Health Insurance Programs, requests to extend two existing contracts to deliver education, outreach and technical assistance to healthcare practitioners eligible for the NY Medicaid Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program to support the adoption and meaningful use of Certified Electronic Health Records Technology (CEHRT).

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, signed into law as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), authorized and provided grant funding for a Health Information Technology Extension Program under the supervision of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC). The extension program consists of Regional Extension Centers (RECs). The RECs are designed to offer technical assistance, guidance and information on best practices to support and accelerate health care providers' efforts to become meaningful users of EHRs. The extension program established 62 federally-approved regional centers nationally, each serving a defined geographic area. In New York State, only two Regional Extension Centers (RECs) exist. They are: (1) New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) and (2) New York City Regional Extension Adoption Center for Health (NYC REACH)

One of the major goals of the program at both the federal and state levels is to expand the number of participating providers. Previous funding levels were insufficient to reach the desired caseload. To support this, the Federal Center for Medicaid Services (CMS) reviewed the needs of New York State and approved an increase in funding for the core payments of about 25 percent. These funds increased provider outreach, education and assistance activities. The success of core activities will flow directly into the number of providers who sign up and successfully attest to the incentive, thus increasing the number of Milestone payments the vendors qualify for. Therefore, CMS also approved a 55% increase in the Milestone payment funding. This has the potential to assist an additional 5,000 providers receive their EHR Incentive payment (13,400 compared to 7,400) over the previous two year term. Milestones under this program are oriented toward maximizing alignment with the goals of the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, and contingent upon the contractors' success in assisting providers to achieve these goals. Milestone funding will only be provided for documented success.

Procurement / Program Name	Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentive Program
Contractor Name(s)	New York eHealth Collaborative Regional Extension Center (NYeC REC) Fund for Public Health in NY, Inc.
Contract Period	10/1/2014 - 9/30/2016 (two year extension)
Contract Number(s)	C029354 & C029355