Healthmonix Advisor

Early on the morning of February 10th, the Senate approved the nomination of now-former Rep. Tom Price to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  While some say his chief priority is “dismantling of the Affordable Care Act”  (Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington), the tasks that will be put in front of him also include five major health IT initiatives:  appointments to ONC and other agencies, the future of MACRA and Meaningful Use, the enforcement of interoperability, telemedicine, and cybersecurity. 

The Advancing Care Information Performance Category will be replacing the EHR Incentive Program (colloquially known as Meaningful Use) for 2017 performance year, as a part of the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). One of three performance categories to be scored for 2017 reporting, ACI will be worth 25% of your total MIPS Composite Performance Score. Non-physician eligible clinicians, hospital-based eligible clinicians, and non-patient facing eligible clinicians are considered ineligible for Advancing Care Information, and will have this performance category automatically re-weighted to zero.

The MIPS Quality Performance Category is replacing PQRS reporting in 2017, folding it into the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System. The Quality portion will comprise 60% of an eligible clinician's MIPS Composite Performance Score for 2017.  To calculate that score, there is significant math involved.  This article will walk you though the calculations and logic used to determine your Quality score, but it is important to note that many data submission vendors will automatically give you a predictive calculation.

With the introduction of MIPS reporting in 2017, and the launch of MIPSPRO, now is the time to be considering efficient ways of fulfilling MIPS requirements. CMS is conducting a study with the aim of better understanding practice's experiences quality reporting that will satisfy the Improvement Activities Performance Category of the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Applications for this study are going to be accepted from January 1 - 31, 2017.

Thanksgiving is almost here! For me, this means reflecting on the things in my life that I am thankful for. Along with the tasty food I am about to consume with my loved ones, this year I am grateful for the MACRA Quality Payment Program. This may sound perplexing to you, as the MACRA Quality Payment Program has been causing a lot of alarm in the healthcare industry since the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). However, with the release of the final rule came many provisions that I believe will improve the ease of reporting for clinicians while continuing to improve the quality of care for patients.

To briefly refresh before jumping in, the MACRA Quality Payment Program is split into two paths: the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Advanced Alternative Payment Models (Advanced APMs). MIPS streamlines pre-existing CMS quality initiatives (like PQRS and Meaningful Use), while Advanced APMs are designed to encourage innovative value-based payment models.

 On October 14, 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services release the MACRA Quality Payment Program Final Rule. According to the Executive Summary of the Final Rule, the aims of the Quality Payment Program are to : "(1) support care improvement by focusing on better outcomes for patients, decreased provider burden, and preservation of independent clinical practice; (2) promote adoption of Alternative Payment Models that align incentives across healthcare stakeholders; and (3) advance existing efforts of Delivery System Reform, including ensuring a smooth transition to a new system that promotes high-quality, efficient care through unification of CMS legacy programs."^[1]

In past weeks, we’ve looked at some reasons why bundled payments are taking off, and investigated a few specific CMS bundled payment initiatives happening now and in the near future. This week we’ve put together a list of three steps you can take right now to make bundled payments work for you and your practice.

The MACRA Quality Payment Program final rule, released Oct. 14, finalizes the payment programs for physicians under MACRA’s Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APMs) and the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), beginning January 1, 2017. 

Healthmonix has hosted several MIPS webinars to help our clients and the wider community understand the program, and we have just completed our first MIPS-related webinar since the final rule was released in an unscheduled, but much anticipated manner. As I listened to our team present the webinar, I felt strangely akin to a presidential debate fact checker. With over 2,000 pages of new material, less than a week to process and present, and a fully booked webinar, the stakes had never been higher.

Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the final rule with comment period for the Quality Payment Program under MACRA. Consistent with what was discussed in the proposed rule, the MACRA Quality Payment Program will have two tracks: (1) Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APMs) and the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). This is part two of our summary of the final rule, and will cover the pacing options available under MIPS. To read more about MIPS Eligibility and the MIPS performance categories, please check out Part 1!