CMS announces QPP MIPS reporting Relaxations for 2020
The last few months have been tough for the healthcare industry. All stakeholders were trying desperately to assist each other and save resources for COVID-19 response. Of course, meanwhile, CMS also took necessary measures to unburden some of the clinicians’ load.
Where physicians have already burned out with COVID -19 cases, the administrative burden of QPP MIPS 2020 was additional pressure. The dynamics have changed. The contact points that were easily accessible before are now operational via online mediums.
Thus, eligible clinicians and MIPS Qualified Registries can take benefit from it and serve effortlessly to the patients.
At first, CMS requested clinicians to impede elective medical procedures. In simple terms, it means to delay diagnostic procedures or treatments that don’t qualify for emergency conditions.
However, the process of offering flexibilities continues for the QPP MIPS. At first, CMS asked healthcare professionals to delay elective medical procedures and treatments, but with things starting to get back to normal, the Trump administration reopens all medical practices.
Telehealth was another option that was promoted to continue the services along with COVID response. QPP MIPS 2020 is also going to reward physicians who adopted telehealth and practiced it to accommodate patients from every corner. It not only accounts for improvement activities but for promoting interoperability. It is a great opportunity for scoring high and target incentives.
The following are the relaxation areas that MIPS eligible clinicians can enjoy.
Relaxations for the QPP MIPS 2020
CMS states that the eligible clinicians who are significantly impacted by the public health emergency can apply for Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances to reweight any of the four or all MIPS performance categories.
However, they are required to submit a solid explanation for the impact on their medical practice.
A COVID-19 clinical Improvement Activity under MIPS is also introduced by the CMS. Eligible clinicians can obtain outcomes via:
- Participating in a COVID-19 clinical trial Improvement Activity and submit data into a data platform
- Participating in the healthcare of COVID-19 infectees and submit patients’ data to Clinical Data Registry for research
As physicians are busy battling against coronavirus pandemic, CMS has decided to not use data reflecting from January 1st to June 30th, 2020 for the Medicare Quality Reporting and value-based purchased programs. These measures are taken to give advantage to eligible physicians to some extent as to minimize the administrative burden incurred during data collection and management. A lot of time and investment can be saved, henceforth.
Yeah, this is the high time to report QPP MIPS and get relaxation. On the other hand, this blog contains very useful information regarding QPP MIPS reporting.