Podcast interview with Kathy Roe of Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP

[audio http://website.guild.im/williams/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2009/03/kathyroe3.mp3]
The federal stimulus bill signed into law last month contains more than $100 billion of health care related funding, including roughly $20 billion for health care IT. After reading through the legislation I still had a lot of unanswered questions about how this money will be made available, when and to whom.So I got in touch with Kathy Roe, a partner in the Health Law Practice group at Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg in Chicago to get the inside scoop. Kathy answered a number of questions including:

• What aspects of the stimulus are relevant for HIT?
• Why is the money provided in the form of incentive payments rather than directly for the purchase of hardware, software and services?
• How should physicians and hospitals respond to the stimulus?
• What is meaningful use? Do people installing systems today have to worry about whether they'll qualify?
• What is the connection between the HIT funding in the stimulus bill and the broader health care reform agenda?