Key events have effectively accelerated this pace. First, there was the election of the Obama administration in 2008 on a platform that emphasized healthcare reform. Sec- ond, there was the contemporaneous global economic meltdown and the subsequent enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), including the sec- tion entitled Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH). HDOs, as well as state and federal legislative and regulatory agencies, are now entrants in an HIT compliance race. Current federal law directs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), to begin a fundamental redefinition of reim- bursement for healthcare services by.
