Get Moving to Catch Early EHR Meaningful Use Incentives

Smaller providers may also want to look into independent physicians associations (IPA), some of which are purchasing EHRs and making them available through a subscription fee. With this option, you have your own Web-based version, and you pay the IPA a certain amount annually to host the EHR, explains Apgar.

"This can be affordable because you don't have to go out and buy a brand-new system and implement it and have someone administer it and all that," he says. "You're paying a subscription fee to use it, in essence, so you don't have the cost of ownership."

Remember, however, that subscription-based EHRs may end up costing more in the end, even though they are becoming more common, Apgar says.

If you are still searching for an EHR vendor, don't forget about the big picture. With additional requirements coming soon, whether additional meaningful use measures or other capabilities your EHR will need to be ICD-10 compliant, look for a product and vendor that will be able to keep up.

"If you are in the position of buying a product today, you want to be buying a product that is going to take you through those stages," Amatayakul says. "My sense is that you approach this by trying to address the long haul. Otherwise, you're going to be faced with pieces of things that don't work together real well."

And avoid vendors who don't have a sense of the upcoming changes and how they plan to address them.

"If there is little to no understanding on the part of the vendor as to what this means, or the vendor can't describe for you what they plan to do, I would avoid that vendor," Amatayakul says. "That means they're not going to be able to keep up."