QPP MIPS 2020 Reporting Flexibilities amidst Pandemic

CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) has proven to be an authority that addresses physicians’ concerns in an effective manner.

With the pandemic situation going on, the pressure on physicians only got worse, which the authority took notice of.

Flexibilities for MIPS Eligible Physicians

To ease the administrative load for MIPS 2020 data submission, CMS announced to facilitate clinicians amidst the corona pandemic.

CMS announces QPP MIPS reporting Relaxations for 2020

Extreme & Uncontrollable Circumstances Application

Many medical practices have been affected by the surging corona positive cases.

Such practices, whose conditions have gotten worse during this period can apply for “Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Application”.

In case of acceptance of this application, CMS will reweight any or all MIPS performance categories. However, the applicants have to provide a solid reason for this relaxation and justify the impact of COVID-19 on their practice.

This is done in order to offer relief for QPP MIPS 2020 data submission.

COVID-19 Clinical Trials for Improvement Activities (IA)

Now, under the MIPS program, eligible clinicians can also report COVID-19 related data for Improvement Activities (IA).

Any of the following conditions are to be fulfilled in order to participate in MIPS 2020 IA clinical trials.

The interested clinicians must submit data to a relevant platform for research purposes, then, they can apply for the clinical trial.
The interested physicians must submit COVID-19 patients’ data to a clinical data registry for research purposes without any change.

One thing worth mentioning here is that CMS has clearly stated in its notification that no data from Jan 1, 2020, through June 30, 2020, will be used to excuse the MIPS 2020 reporting requirements.

This restriction applies to all Medicare Quality Reporting programs as well as the Value-Based Purchasing programs.

Thus, data related to respective dates will be served to reduce the administrative load.

Visit our website for more information on QPP MIPS 2020 relaxations.