New Merit Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Whitepaper

I’m not sure why MIPS (Merit-based Incentive Payment System) doesn’t seem to have gotten more attention, but for those not familiar with MIPS, it’s the law that was put in place as apart of the replacement to SGR. What does that mean? MIPS is going to be the framework that’s used to switch from a fee for service based reimbursement environment to a value based care model. Short Story: MIPS is going to be very important to the future of healthcare!

Jim Tate just put out a whitepaper he recently created that covers the details of the MIPS program. If you’re not familiar with what was signed into law, Jim’s whitepaper will be a good place for you to start. Here’s a small section of the whitepaper which will give you a feel for the MIPS program:

Under MIPS, high-performing providers will be rewarded and low-performing providers will be penalized. It is designed to strengthen, incorporate, as well as consolidate the financial impacts of the MU of CEHRT, PQRS, and VBM programs. The current incentive programs will be combined and a composite threshold performance score (scale 0-100) will be established aimed at informing providers of the levels of reimbursement based on four key performance measures: resource use, MU, quality, and clinical practice improvement activities.

There are four performance categories for deriving a provider’s potential annual score (0-100 points) for MIPS: 25 points for the MU of CHERT, 15 points for clinical practice improvement, up to 30 points for VBM-measured quality and 30 points for the VBM-measured resource use. The details for the MIPS program will be determined by CMS. 2017 will be the first MIPS performance year and those scores will lead to potential payment adjustments in 2019.

Check out Jim’s whitepaper for a lot more details. You can be sure we’ll be talking a lot more about MIPS in the future. Understanding MIPS is going to be extremely important for every healthcare organization. Get ready to put together whole teams of people to make sure you understand MIPS and are able to comply.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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