This post is part of the MACRA Monday series of blog posts where we dive into the details of MACRA.
The Merit-based Incentive Payment System or MIPS as we now know it is going to be a big part of most practices future. As we mentioned previously, most practices will be participating in the MIPS program as opposed to the APM program under MACRA. Here’s a quick overview of the MIPS program. Over the next months, we’ll be diving deeper and deeper into the details of MIPS.
MIPS replaces 3 programs that will likely be familiar to most readers: PQRS, the Medicare EHR Incentive Program (Better known as meaningful use), and the Value-Based Payment Modifier (VBM). The last one might not be as familiar to people, but PQRS and Meaningful Use are likely very familiar. In future posts, we’ll dive into the changes to these programs that come as they’re rolled into MIPS.
It’s worth noting that these programs will continue to run in their current from through 2018. Plus, the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program and the Medicare EHR Incentive Program for Hospitals will continue. Along with rolling the 3 current programs into MIPS, MACRA also adds a new program to MIPS called the Clinical Practice Improvement Activities (CPIA).
The first performance period for MIPS is 2017 with MIPS adjustments happening in 2019. At least that’s the way it’s listed in the proposed rule. Many are suggesting that there’s no way that MIPS will be for all of 2017. They argue that it has to be either delayed or moved to a 90 day reporting period (which is basically a 9 month delay). We’ll see what they finally decide when the MACRA final rule finally comes out.
The potential MIPS adjustments to your Medicare Part B payment are 4% in 2019 and grow to 9% in 2022. Remember that these adjustments can be both positive and negative based on how well you participate in the MIPS program. We’ll dive into the MIPS Composite Score that determines your MIPS payment adjustment in a future post. Here’s a charge which illustrates the MIPS timeline and incentives:
That’s all for our MIPS overview. Next up we’ll dive into who is eligible for MIPS and who is not eligible for MIPS.
You can see how if you’re already participating in PQRS, Meaningful Use, and the Value-Based Modifier, then you are well positioned to do well in MIPS. This will become even more clear when we discuss the weighted scoring that each of these pieces of MIPS receives. Of course, if you haven’t been participating in these programs, then MIPS will definitely be a pretty big hill to climb.
Be sure to check out all of our MACRA Monday blog posts where we dive into the details of the MACRA program.
