What is Promoting Interoperability?
This performance category promotes patient engagement and electronic exchange of information using certified electronic health record technology (CEHRT). This performance category is worth 25% of your MIPS Final Score for 2021. MIPS eligible clinicians report data on objectives and measures collected in their 2015 Edition CEHRT.
MIPS eligible clinicians can use the following to collect and report their Promoting Interoperability data and eCQMs for the quality performance category:
- Technology certified to the existing 2015 Edition, or
- Technology certified to the 2015 Edition Cures Update criteria, or
- A combination of both
If you select the last 90-days in 2021 as your performance period, the 2015 Edition CEHRT must be in place by October 3, 2021. Your EHR must be certified to the 2015 Edition by Dec 31, 2021.
Not sure what Edition your EHR is?
Search for your EHR on the Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) website: https://chpl.healthit.gov/#/search.
Do you think you might qualify for an exception for PI?
You may qualify for a re-weighting of the Promoting Interoperability performance category (to 0% and Quality becomes 70% of your score) if you meet certain criteria: https://qpp.cms.gov/mips/exception-applications
All Promoting Interoperability measures can be easily reported with MDinteractive:
- Log into your account and click on the Add/Edit link next to the PI category. Note: If you do not see this on your homepage, please begin by entering or loading your NPI/TIN combination or just TIN if reporting as a group.
- Enter your minimum 90 day reporting period (required).
- Complete the pre-attestation questions by choosing "yes" for each.
- Enter the Numerator and Denominator, derived from reports run off of your EHR, for each measure into MDinteractive.
There are 11 measures spread across 4 objectives:
- Objective: e-prescribing
- e-Prescribing (10 points)**
- Query of Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) (this measure is optional - 10 point bonus if reported)
- Objective: Provider to Patient Exchange
- Objective: Health Information Exchange
- Support Electronic Referral Loops by Sending Health Information (Option 1: 20 points)**
- Support Electronic Referral Loops by Receiving and Reconciling Health Information (Option 1: 20 points)**
- Health Information Exchange (HIE) Bi-Directional Exchange (Option 2: 40 points)**
- Objective: Public Health and Clinical Data Exchange (report 2 measures for 10 points)
**There are exclusions available for most of the measures. If you meet and claim the exclusion for one or more of the required Promoting Interoperability performance category measures, the points for the measure will be redistributed to another measure or measures as follows:
- e-Prescribing exclusion - 10 points are redistributed equally among the Health Information Exchange objective - each becomes 25 points.
- Support Electronic Referral Loops by Sending Health Information exclusion - 20 points are redistributed to Provider to Patient Exchange objective making it worth 60 points (vs. 40).
- Support Electronic Referral Loops by Receiving and Incorporating Health Information exclusion - 20 points are redistributed to Support Electronic Referral Loops by Sending Health Information measure making it worth 40 points (vs. 20).
- Public Health and Clinical Data Exchange exclusion - if 2 different measures are excluded, the 10 points are redistributed to Provider to Patient Exchange objective making this measure worth 50 points.
The actions included in the Security and Risk Analysis measure are still required to be performed (attest yes) during the calendar year in which the performance period occurs, but it is an unscored measure.