HIT Loans for Small Businesses

Legislation reported this week to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives would authorize $10 billion in federal loan guarantees to aid providers and other health care small businesses in buying health information technology products. These would include electronic health records to meet meaningful use requirements in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Eligible providers under the Small Business Health Information Technology Financing Program include physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants; physical and occupational therapists; speech-language pathologists, audiologists, medical transcriptionists, pharmacists, and suppliers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics, and orthotics.  The House Committee on Small Business on Oct. 26 reported the legislation to the floor. The health I.T. language is in Sec. 601 of H.R. 3854, available at congress.gov.