Groups comment on MACRA’s proposed rule
Groups comment on MACRA’s proposed rule August 28, 2017
In June, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a Proposed Rule for Quality Payment Program Year 2, with a goal to “keep what’s working and use stakeholder and clinician feedback to improve the policies finalized in the transition year.”
CMS requested comments from the healthcare community regarding the proposed rule for the Quality Payment Program, established under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), as well as on the CMS message and education delivery. The deadline for those comments was August 21, 2017.
A number of groups submitted a variety of feedback to CMS regarding the proposed rule. As reported in Medscape, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) both “sought more flexibility for eligible clinicians and group practices to take part in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).
However, these two groups differed in their comments regarding the CMS proposal regarding Low-Volume Threshold, which reads:
Increase the threshold to exclude individual MIPS eligible clinicians or groups with ≤$90,000 in Part B allowed charges or ≤200 Part B beneficiaries during a low volume threshold determination period that occurs during the performance period or a prior period.
The AMA was supportive of the proposed threshold, while the AMGA was critical of the higher numbers and recommended keeping the current threshold of $30,000 or less.
According to the Medscape article, the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) commented that “it was unrealistic to expect practices to be ready for full-year reporting by January 1, just a couple of months after the final QPP rule is expected to be released” and asked CMS to “permanently shorten the reporting period for quality measures from the calendar year to 90 consecutive days.”
Elation Health will continue to monitor and report on updates to the Proposed Rule for Payment Program Year 2, as well as on any other changes to the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) with a focus on helping independent physicians provide quality healthcare to their patients while managing their practices more efficiently.
