From the AMA site

Incentive payment structures for health information technology (HIT) adoption differ. In particular, the imposition of Medicare payment reductions for those providers who are not “meaningful users” of HIT would begin in 2015 in the Senate bill, one year earlier than in the House bill.

There were widespread reports and commentaries this week that mischaracterize some provisions of the package pertaining to HIT and to comparative effectiveness research. To clarify, neither version of the bill would create a federal system for electronically tracking patients’ medical treatments or for monitoring compliance with federal treatment standards. While the legislation would impose financial penalties for those who do not adopt HIT in the next 6-7 years, those penalties bear no relation to individual treatment decisions made by physicians. Further, neither bill would create a single new bureaucracy to determine whether treatments are appropriate or cost effective. In fact, both versions of the bill incorporate by reference provisions in current law that prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from including mandates establishing national clinical guidelines or national coverage decisions in clinical comparative effectiveness research.

ama-assn.org