Quality Payment Program Tops List Of Regulatory Burdens On Medical Practices

A new survey by the Medical Group Management Association has found that meeting the demands of the Medicare Quality Payment Program tops the list of regulatory burdens named by respondents in medical practices.

The survey, which collected responses from 426 medical groups, found that their regulatory burdens were climbing, with 86% reporting that such burdens had increased over the past 12 months. A smaller but similar share of respondents (79%) reported that the overall regulatory burden associated with participating in Medicare specifically had increased during the same period.

When asked to name the regulatory requirements they considered to be very or extremely burdensome, 88% named the Quality Payment Program, followed by prior authorization (82%), lack of EHR interoperability (80%), government EHR requirements (77%) and audits/appeals (68%). In contrast, just 49% of respondents saw compliance with HIPAA privacy and security requirements to be a major concern.

Given the challenges it imposes on practices, it’s no wonder that the MGMA respondents struggle with MIPS, with just 9% stating that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the performance feedback the program offers. Two-thirds of respondents told the MGMA that at least in its current form, MIPS doesn’t support their practice’s clinical quality priorities.

Perhaps the most irksome aspects of the MIPS program seemed to be the full-year quality reporting period and scoring methodology. Roughly two-thirds of respondents were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with these aspects of the program. “The lack of clarity and constant readjusting of the MACRA regulations regarding MIPS/APMs is also frustrating,” one group member said.

In addition, despite ongoing efforts to support patient data exchange, the percent of respondents who rated a lack of EHR interoperability as very or extremely burdensome has climbed over the last 12 months, from 68% last year to 80% in 2018.

Ultimately, this problem could have serious financial consequences for some organizations. “Interoperability will never be achieved at the rate we’re going without bankrupting most private medical practices,” wrote one respondent. “As each of the EHR vendors moves towards their own interpretation of interoperability, they create different versions of their own software that cost all of us more to implement and we can’t afford any more.”

If these issues aren’t addressed, it seems likely Medicare’s drive toward value-based payment will be less successful than its leaders would hope.  Seventy-nine percent of practices responding to the MGMA survey said they didn’t think the move toward value-based payment had been successful to date, and it doesn’t seem likely that this will change if physicians continue to feel overburdened and misunderstood

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

1 Comment

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