By Virgil Dickson | June
20, 2017
The CMS wants to exempt
more small providers from having to comply with MACRA.
Physician practices with less than $90,000 in Medicare revenue or fewer than 200 unique Medicare patients per year would be exempt under the new draft rule released Tuesday. The original threshold was $30,000 or fewer than 100 Medicare patients.
The move will exclude about 134,000 more clinicians from complying with the quality reporting program under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.
"We've heard the concerns that too many quality programs, technology requirements and measures get between the doctor and the patient," CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement about the rule. "That's why we're taking a hard look at reducing burdens."
To avoid penalties under MACRA, physicians must follow one of two payment tracks: the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, known as MIPS, or advanced alternative payment models.
Providers recently had been urging the CMS to reduce the reporting burdens for physician practices under MIPS and certify more APMs to meet MACRA requirements.
The Obama administration had also sought to ease compliance under MACRA. Last year, it introduced two "pick your pace" options for avoiding penalties for the first performance period that began Jan. 1, 2017. The first option allowed physicians to avoid penalties in 2019 as long as they submit some data to the program—but they will forgo any bonuses paid by the program for meeting certain quality measures. Physicians also could choose to submit data for part of the year and still qualify for a small positive payment adjustment.
Comments on the proposed rule are due Aug. 30.
Physician practices with less than $90,000 in Medicare revenue or fewer than 200 unique Medicare patients per year would be exempt under the new draft rule released Tuesday. The original threshold was $30,000 or fewer than 100 Medicare patients.
The move will exclude about 134,000 more clinicians from complying with the quality reporting program under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.
"We've heard the concerns that too many quality programs, technology requirements and measures get between the doctor and the patient," CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement about the rule. "That's why we're taking a hard look at reducing burdens."
To avoid penalties under MACRA, physicians must follow one of two payment tracks: the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, known as MIPS, or advanced alternative payment models.
Providers recently had been urging the CMS to reduce the reporting burdens for physician practices under MIPS and certify more APMs to meet MACRA requirements.
The Obama administration had also sought to ease compliance under MACRA. Last year, it introduced two "pick your pace" options for avoiding penalties for the first performance period that began Jan. 1, 2017. The first option allowed physicians to avoid penalties in 2019 as long as they submit some data to the program—but they will forgo any bonuses paid by the program for meeting certain quality measures. Physicians also could choose to submit data for part of the year and still qualify for a small positive payment adjustment.
Comments on the proposed rule are due Aug. 30.
Virgil Dickson reports from Washington on the federal regulatory
agencies. His experience before joining Modern Healthcare in 2013 includes
serving as the Washington-based correspondent for PRWeek and as an
editor/reporter for FDA News. Dickson earned a bachelor's degree from DePaul
University in 2007.
Such a nice blog and very nice you work and sharing this wonderful article about the MIPS keep posting.
ReplyDeleteMIPS