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.
TAFP published two of these resources in a recent edition of Texas Family Physician that explain the different performance categories under MIPS, the Merit-based Incentive Payment System. Physicians participating in MIPS will receive adjusted payments based on performance in four categories: quality, cost, Advancing Care Information, and Improvement Activities.
The quality and cost categories will be familiar to many physicians who care for Medicare patients because they are based on the Physician Quality Reporting System and the Value-based Payment Modifier, two programs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has administered for the past few years. Advancing Care Information, or ACI, is based on the Medicare EHR Incentive Program, also known as Meaningful Use, and the Improvement Activities category is a new initiative based on the five functions of family medicine.
Here are the two QPP resources we published, which you can download as PDFs.
- “Making Sense of MACRA: The Value of Quality and Cost”
- “Making Sense of MACRA: Advancing Care Information and Improvement Activities”