Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, sent shock waves throughout the medical industry last week. Meaningful Use - as we know it today - is likely to end in 2016. "The Meaningful Use program as it has existed, will now be effectively over and replaced with some better," Slavitt said at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference last Monday. Needless to say, many people within the healthcare IT industry responded to Slavitt's big announcement by sharing their thoughts on social media. Here's what they had to say:

Meaningful Use - as we know it - will no longer exist, according to the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Andy Slavitt. "Now that we effectively have technology into virtually every place care is provided, we are now in the process of ending Meaningful Use and moving to a new regime culminating with the MACRA implementation," Slavitt said. "The Meaningful Use program as it has existed, will now be effectively over and replaced with some better," he added. The announcement came on Monday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.

Prior to the end of the year, medical practitioners received some good news in regard to Meaningful Use. President Barack Obama signed into law the Patient Access and Medicare Protection Act, also known as S.2425. According to the White House press release, the law "makes changes to Medicare payments for certain complex rehabilitation technology and radiation therapy services, provide flexibility in applying a hardship exception from meaningful use of electronic health records, and improve Medicare and Medicaid program integrity."

With the new year just days away, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) issued its final version of the 2016 Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA). The 80-page document acts as a "single resource for those looking for federally recognized, national interoperability standards and guidance," according to a blog post by ONC's Director of the Office of Standards and Technology Steven Posnack, MS, MHS, and Director of HIT Infrastructure and Innovation Division Chris Muir.

To cap off 2015 for Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed the $1.8 trillion Omnibus deal that included spending bills and crucial tax breaks for small businesses.While this deal was full of a wide variety of credits, the Section 179 tax break stands out particularly to small medical practices.

Earlier in the year, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee passed an extension of two years for Section 179, which provides small businesses (including healthcare practices) with tax deductions for the purchase or (in some cases) leasing of equipment. This was very good news for owners of small medical practices who may have been hoping to upgrade their equipment in 2015.

Depending on a vote by Congress this week, physicians working in ambulatory surgery centers (ASC) could be on track to receive long-awaited incentive money. H.R. 877, also known as the Electronic Health Fairness Act of 2015, is set to be voted upon on Wednesday. Spearheaded by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn), the bill is designed to included ASC doctors in the EHR incentive payments that other physicians have been eligible to receive. Co-sponsoring the bill along with Black are nine Republicans and five Democrats.

If you’ve been following our blog during the latter half of this year (or any Health IT blog, for that matter), you are already well aware of the fact that the chaos of Meaningful Use Stage 3 (MU3) has been causing panic attacks for many folks in the healthcare industry. If you find yourself breaking out in hives at just the thought of MU3, you can at least take comfort in the knowledge that you are definitely not alone. Many groups are calling for it to be reformed.