According to CMS the overarching goal of the new law, and the newly implemented Quality Payment Program, is to provide positive, neutral or negative payment adjustments to shape the way physicians,, nurses and assistants participating in MU deliver patient services. The agency offers incentives to enhance coordinated care, more efficiently while maintaining high-quality continuity of care. Participating doctors have two payment options under MACRA: (1) Merit-Based Incentive Payment (MIP) systems and (2) Alternative Payment Model (APM) systems.
EHR & MIPs
MIPs reimbursements are calculated proportionately based on four performance categories: clinician's quality, use of services, EHR use and quality improvement associated with care coordination and service delivery.
Quality (50%) (Replaces the physician quality reporting system and the quality component of value modifier program)
Resource use (10%) (replaces cost component of Value Modifier …show more content…
According to the AMA, “Having several common frameworks for the new Medicare APMs will not only make it easier for (practice specialist) to create payment models that match their needs, but should also make it easier for Medicare and other payers to implement payment models for multiple specialties,” including small to medium sized practices.
Meeting the quality components is exponentially easier and more accurate with an advanced EHR than paper-based reporting systems because files are indexed and searchable, dramatically reducing the time spent retrieving individual paper files, reviewing documents for relevant data and manually compiling the data for reporting. In addition, advancing care information components mean that in order to receive full points, practices must deploy certified EHR solutions, increasing use overtime.
Maximizing Practice Potential in the MACRA