By OmniMD
Twitter: @omnimd
As we have approached the first year for the Quality Payment Program, healthcare professionals need to develop a plan that leverages strong health IT use and health information exchange in order to avoid negative payment adjustments.
In a recent op-ed, Jon Law, Executive Director of the Paso el Norte Health Information Exchange in Texas, explained how failing to utilize EHRs and other technologies can have negative financial consequences for HealthCare professionals.
“If Medicare physicians meet all quality measures included in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) during this first performance period, those in the area could receive a total maximum payout of $19 million in 2019”, Law wrote in the El Paso Times.
“However, if they fail to perform well, physicians in the area could lose out on that $19 million.” When all is said and done, the area could lose or gain $129 million over the course of four years.
“We need a strategy to keep that $129 million in our region. Otherwise, we literally will be sending that money to other communities. MACRA is designed to be budget neutral, meaning that the punishment for one doctor is the incentive for another.” Law wrote.
On January 1, Medicare providers began collecting quality measure data for this first performance year. Providers will spend all of 2017 collecting performance data. In the interim, Medicare will provide feedback starting in 2018. By March 31 of that same year, eligible clinicians will be expected to submit performance data to receive a positive payment adjustment.
According to AJMC, eligible clinicians can avoid negative payment adjustments for the first performance year by submitting any form of quality measurement data to CMS. While clinicians may not see a positive payment adjustment for selecting this path, they will not receive a negative adjustment either.
This article was originally published on OmniMD and is republished here with permission.