Contents tagged with MACRA
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Get MACRA ready with QPP Now: AAFP enhances tools to help you avoid negative payment adjustment in 2019
By Jonathan Nelson
Amid the daily deluge of news about efforts to repeal Obamacare and the possible passage of the next iteration of health reform winding its way through Congress, it’s easy to forget the looming deadlines associated with Medicare’s Quality Payment Program. But don’t do it! We’re halfway through the year, which means you have only 6 months left to report at least one quality measure or activity in 2017 to avoid being penalized in 2019.
Your Academy has put together a wealth of resources to help you avoid that penalty and prepare for what’s to come. Bookmark this link in your browser and visit it frequently, as modules are being updated and developed as regulations are modified: http://www.aafp.org/practice-management/payment/macraready.html.
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Texas Family Physician - Vol. 68 No. 2, Spring 2017
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CONTENTS
Get MACRA ready with your AcademyAAFP has a new set of resources available to members looking to prepare for Medicare’s Quality … more
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MACRA and managing change
By Ajay Gupta, MD
TAFP President, 2015-2016As many of you are acutely aware, our health care delivery system is undergoing dramatic changes. For those of you who have been around as long as I have, this has been a similar theme for several years. One common phrase I have heard over the years is the idea of “change.” Many of us have been frustrated by the changes in the past. These changes have been unfavorable for family medicine. One thing is clear: the current system is broken and unsustainable.
Every day patients ask my opinion on these changes. Will it help family medicine? Will private practice survive? What’s going to happen to you and your colleagues? I respond by telling them I feel our current system is indeed broken.
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Texas Family Physician - Vol. 67 No. 2, Spring 2016
Go to the TFP archive
View the virtual issue
President’s letter
Perspective
CONTENTS
TMF Health Quality Institute: Helping you succeed in the transformation from volume to value is … more
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2017 and MACRA are on the way, but now you can pick your pace
By Perdita Henry
The march from volume-to-value by way of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 has been steady, and as we prepare to meet 2017, anxiety about the new Quality Payment Program has left many wondering what hurdles they will have to face.
CMS recently announced the Pick Your Pace Program, specifically designed to assist medical providers at different readiness levels as they prepare for MACRA. The announcement was a welcomed development by AAFP Board Chair Robert Wergin, MD, who took it as a sign that CMS not only took into account AAFP’s comment letter in reference to MACRA but also realized physician success in implementing the new payment program benefits everyone in the health care community.
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The brave new world of the SGR repeal
By Dale Ragle, MD
TAFP President, 2014-2015On April 16, 2015, President Obama signed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which phases out Medicare’s flawed sustainable growth rate payment formula over the next 10 years. The so-called “doc fix” enjoyed bipartisan and bicameral support in Congress, a rare phenomenon these days, as well as support from most major medical organizations, including AAFP and the American Medical Association. In spite of broad support, the bill took more than a year of tweaking and survived innumerable negotiations between both political parties and the White House, a testament to the adage that “the devil is in the details.”
The SGR formula tied Medicare expenditures to the gross domestic product. Since demand and utilization of health care services do not rise and fall directly with the ebbs and flows of the general economy, the SGR often threatened to cut physician fees year after year. Perennially, Congress passed special legislation to delay the fee cuts, often only finding they have to repeat the action in the following year.
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