Healthmonix Advisor

The NAACOS Fall 2021 Conference was the first live meeting that the Healthmonix team attended since HIMSS 2020 was cancelled in March of that year. It was certainly reinvigorating to meet in person, discuss the state of payment models, and hear from CMS regarding their vision.

With the release of the 2020 feedback report detailing the 2.2% maximum possible payment adjustment and the release of the 2022 Proposed Rule, MIPS participants find themselves wrestling with lingering disappointment from participation in the program in previous years, and resistance to the idea that MIPS will be financially rewarding and challenging, in terms of reporting requirements, in 2021 and beyond.    

This is the second in a series of blog posts on the 2020 payment adjustment and the 2022 Proposed Rule, that will address this sense of disappointment and show how the future of MIPS will contain much more rigorous program requirements and create greater financial rewards.  To see financial and program success, you will need to be prepared to meet the new challenges.  We have the guidance you need to succeed in 2021 and beyond.    

With the release of the 2020 feedback report detailing the 2.2% maximum possible payment adjustment and the release of the 2022 Proposed Rule, MIPS participants find themselves wrestling with lingering disappointment from participation in the program in previous years, and resistance to the idea that MIPS will be financially rewarding and challenging, in terms of reporting requirements, in 2021 and beyond.   

For ACOs participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), CMS is implementing rules in 2021 and 2022 for quality reporting which include a sweeping change. This change will require a new reporting approach, in order to aggregate data from electronic health record systems used across an ACO for all patients seen by any provider, regardless of payer or participation in the ACO. In a recent survey, nearly 75% of the ACO respondents indicated concern with the challenge of these requirements. The Web Interface reporting is being sunset, and ACOs need to devote attention to determining their strategy for transitioning quality reporting. Success will require thoughtful planning and experienced system implementation.

As we move into 2021 and beyond, we see CMS putting some real teeth into the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) program.  This is the first year where we see more than two percent incentives possible.  Exemptions and exclusions are narrowing.  Participants in other value-based programs are being forced into MIPS reporting because of higher thresholds for exclusion and elimination of other reporting options.

There has been much talk around MVPs in the CMS quality reporting arena. MVP means MIPS Value Pathway, and it’s a reporting framework that CMS is communicating as (a) the next evolution of MIPS and (b) a transition tool for getting to other alternative payment modules. As CMS continues to define and refine their vision of the MVPs, they have started to call the current framework 'traditional MIPS' to prepare for the inclusion of the MVP option. You’ll see this when you visit the QPP site. That said, how can MVPs affect MIPS?

For years, we’ve heard that the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) will provide a noticeable incentive for participants in this Medicare FFS program. And for years, there have been reasons why that has not occurred. First, CMS wanted to ‘start slow’ with the MIPS program in 2017 and 2018, so the caps on penalties and incentives were small. Then the potential penalties and incentives were raised, but the threshold for qualifying for an incentive remained low. This, coupled with the program’s budget neutrality meant there was not much revenue to distribute to high performers. Then COVID-19 negated much of the program for the last two years. So here we are, in year five, and we see that the program, for the first time, will have a significant downside and upside potential.

The quick answer is NO!

There has been quite a bit of discussion, and some press, about the reporting period for MIPS for 2020. I have seen a few articles saying that no data reflecting services provided January 1, 2020 through June 30, 2020 will be used in the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS’s) calculations for the Medicare quality reporting and value-based purchasing programs. However, if you read the Quality Payment Program – COVID-19 Response, Updated 6/24/2020, there is no mention of an all-inclusive change to the reporting period.

We know the current regulatory updates for the Quality Payment Program (QPP) program. To date,  the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued many changes. The 2019 MIPS reporting requirement had an extended deadline and options for hardship exemptions. The 2020 MSSP program reporting period had many changes in both of the interim final rule with comment periods (IFCs) issued by  CMS, at the end of March and the end of April. CMS has also added a COVID-19 improvement activity to the 2020 program, that provides full credit for the Improvement Activity category for MIPS, if an individual or 50% of a group (TIN) participates in clinical trial reporting. No changes to the reporting window or other parameters of the program have been issued.

Are you wondering how MIPS reporting in 2020 will be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?  Are you holding off reporting because you are uncertain as to the requirements for 2020?  Has the responsibility of MIPS reporting shifted with the impact of the pandemic on your organization?