The MIPS Improvement Activities (IA) performance category measures a clinician or group’s engagement in clinical activities that improve clinical practice, care delivery, and outcomes. This year clinicians will need to attest to the Improvement Activities category, alongside reporting other MIPS categories, to ensure they reach the new minimum threshold of 75 points needed to avoid a MIPS penalty. The last day to start a new activity for a minimum 90-day reporting period is October 3, 2022. This article provides an overview of the IA category and offers tips on selecting activities most relevant to a clinician’s practice.

On December 1, 2020 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its 2021 Final Rule for the Quality Payment Program (QPP) with changes to the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Alternative Payment Models (APMs). Here is a look at some key highlights of the QPP changes and how they could impact your practice.

If you have two or more clinicians billing with the same Tax Identification Number (TIN) in your practice, you should consider reporting MIPS as a group to gain some administrative relief and possibly increase your chances for success. According to CMS data, the majority of practices are choosing to report as a group. There are many reasons why group reporting is the preferred option for clinicians. Let’s take a look at what group reporting means, and why it may benefit your practice.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its Final Rule for the Quality Payment Program (QPP), with several changes to MIPS in 2020 and future reporting years. The Final Rule continues to gradually increase the reporting requirements under the MIPS program. In this article we will highlight the most important changes you need to know for the 2020 performance year and how they could impact your bottom line. We will also cover how CMS plans to transform the program in 2021 to reduce your reporting burden.

Cost is the fourth performance category under the MIPS program and makes up 15% of your total MIPS score for 2019 (up from 10% in 2018 and 0% in 2017). This category will steadily increase to 30% by the year 2022 when it will have the same weight as Quality. If CMS is unable to calculate a Cost score for a clinician, the category will be reweighted to Quality. While clinicians can relatively quickly change their MIPS Quality score by tracking some specific outcomes (e.g., track smoking status and give cessation advice), Cost is more challenging. It is more complex with many different variables, so monitoring Cost becomes important as it contributes more towards your final MIPS score. MDinteractive can help you access your CMS performance feedback reports which will provide your Cost score from prior MIPS reporting years.  In this article we will explore the different cost measures, how they are scored and the potential impact on your practice.

With another MIPS performance year behind us, it is not too early to start thinking about a reporting strategy to ensure MIPS success for 2019. This year CMS is providing new flexibility to report quality measures through multiple submission methods which can help improve MIPS scores and increase incentive payments. In this article we demonstrate how combining registry and EHR measures will help specific clinicians with their MIPS reporting. The strategy would not only boost their MIPS scores, but it would also increase their Medicare payments by thousands of dollars.

CMS recently reported that 95% of MIPS eligible clinicians received a positive or neutral payment adjustment for their MIPS performance in 2017. Unfortunately, this means that 5% of MIPS eligible clinicians will be penalized in 2019 for not reporting MIPS last year. And the penalty for not reporting is even higher this year - an automatic 5% deduction of your 2020 Medicare reimbursements. There’s still time to report MIPS for 2018 to protect your Medicare reimbursement. MDinteractive’s 2018 MIPS Reporting Checklist will guide you through the steps to take now to successfully report MIPS.

As we head into the final stretch of Year 2 of the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), clinicians can finally see the finish line approaching for the 2018 performance year. This year MIPS is made up of 4 components: Quality, Promoting Interoperability (formerly ACI), Improvement Activities and Cost. The Quality category accounts for the most at 50% of your total MIPS score. While many clinicians have already collected data throughout the year, it’s not too late to develop a strategy to successfully report Quality and potentially maximize your Medicare reimbursements in 2020.