A Medicare deadline has come and gone. October the 18th was the last day to register with Medicare to report as a group* and to choose your group reporting method. If you missed the deadline, you will not be able to report as a group using any of the three Group Practice Reporting Options.

But if you missed the deadline, DON’T PANIC. It is likely that you can still participate in the Physician Quality Reporting System. It is likely you can still earn the 0.5% Incentive for 2013 reporting. And, it is likely you can still avoid the 1.5% adjustment to your Medicare payments in 2015 for failure to report PQRS for 2013.

There is one practice demographic who has my permission to panic. But make it brief. It is not as big a deal as it might seem. If you are in a group practice of 100 or more providers, and you did not register as a group for one of the three Group Practice Reporting Options by October 18, 2013, then you will not be able to avoid the 1% Value Based Modifier adjustment that will be applied to your 2015 Medicare Payments.  The good news is that you can still earn the 0.5% PQRS incentive for 2013 and you can avoid the 1.5% adjustment in 2015 that would otherwise be due for not submitting PQRS in 2013.

One more thing. Medicare suffered a lot of malfunctions during the GPRO self-nomination process. If you got started and didn’t finish, there is still hope. If you have set up your group in IACS, and have one of the PV-Roles, but did not make it through the CMS Enterprise Portal because it was down or didn’t recognize your username and password or some other hiccup, then make sure you contact the PV-Help Desk.

If you tried to get in and failed, and you entered a ticket with the help desk, you should be able to get assurance from the help desk that you have until October 23 to finish the process.

It’s confusing and we are happy to help you find your way through. Give us a call.  Drop us an email.  Get on our chat line  Join us on one of our webinars. Leave a comment or question about this post.

There is still plenty of time for you to make a successful PQRS submission for 2013 that will avoid the penalty and earn the incentive.

dan

*Medicare defines a practice as two or more eligible professionals with the same TIN.  If you have a Group NPI, this is not the same as reporting for PQRS as a group.

MIPS and ACO Reporting under the Quality Payment Program

Dr. Dan Mingle and members of the team share their insights on how to maximize your success and payments for MIPS and APMs.

Get Insights