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I'm sure we're all glad that the Feds have made it so easy for physicians to register for the Medicare Primary Care Incentive Program.  Unfortunately HHS has made it very complicated for us pediatricians who don't play well with Medicare.  The vast majority of pediatricians have never had to deal with Medicare unless on a personal basis.  Pediatricians have to join the incentive program under Medicaid rules, and while we only have to prove 20% Medicaid participation rate, some of us will have difficulties proving those numbers. 

But the biggest pain is the obfuscation encountered in the registering through the PECOS Medicare enrollment system that we must all do if we're to participate in the Federal incentives.  This clunky system required that I first renew forgotten passwords through the NPPES website that issued us each our NPI numbers 5 years ago, then reenter all of my practice information three times over about 10 screens.  It never saved the information screen to screen and each page required one to reenter the information anew.  Atop of that I had to separately register myself, my partner, and my practice.  I had to dig up old IRS letterhead notices reflecting my practice's tax ID number so that they would accept my practice as 'valid', then fax it all to San Antonio before they would even allow registration.  In all, it took about 5-6 hours to complete all the steps.  And after a month I have still to hear from National Heritage Insurance Company (the regional Medicare provider administrator) as to whether we're officially in the system.

All this gobblygook that pediatricians have to go through just to register for the meaningful use incentives make me happy I'm not a Medicare participating physician.  I'd really hate to have to jump through all those hoops on a daily basis.