Following pressure from industry groups, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a new set of rules this week that will relax some of the requirements for the ePrescribing incentives program and bring the guidelines more closely in line with the meaningful use rules of the EHR incentives program.

The new rules will make the quality reporting standards and technology requirements more closely resemble those of the EHR incentive program. Additionally, the process for requesting a hardship exemption from the program will be simplified for the remainder of the year.

In updating the rules for the ePrescribing incentives program, CMS officials acknowledged that many professionals in the industry were unhappy with many of the program's requirements.

More than 400 comments were sent to the agency asking it to address concerns with the program. These comments mainly focused on differences in the requirements of the ePrescribing and EHR incentive programs, officials said.

The American Medical Association was among the leading groups calling for changes to the program. The Association's main problem was that there was not enough time for physicians to request hardship exemptions before penalties started to accrue.