Measuring Healthcare Reform's Impact

While addressing many large issues around payment reform, the act also contains detailed health IT provisions on issues that many CIOs are likely already dealing with. For instance, it requires HHS to receive input on whether revisions should be made to the crosswalk between ICD-9 and ICD-10 that is on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Web site. Likewise, calls for financial and administrative simplification build on efforts already under way.

Baylor’s Muntz says one major concern is the provision in the healthcare reform legislation that mandates an excise tax on biomedical equipment. Set to begin in 2013, the 2.3 percent tax is expected to raise $20 billion over the next 10 years.

“That 2.3 percent could have a huge impact on organizations already spending tens of millions on such equipment,” he says.

HIMSS’ Roberts says that many people have been overwhelmed trying to digest all the information in the bill, and many are not clear what is hype and reality about the legislation, but he believes it is going to have a “major positive impact.”

But even if it hadn’t passed, Roberts says, the momentum for health IT developments wouldn’t have abated.

“President Obama has made clear that in the movement toward universal coverage, they first had to lay the groundwork, which included interoperable health records,” he explains. “This is a building block process, so even if this bill hadn’t passed, the incentives in HITECH still would have laid the foundation and still would have been the priority for providers.”