PQRS Solutions fully qualified for CMS
PQRS Solutions is one of only 15 registries in the country qualified by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services to submit all quality measures for 2012 incentive payments.
Qualification is a process whereby registries have to pass a “use test” for each measure and demonstrate that they can submit the data in the correct format.
A use test presents typical patient data and the registry must determine if the data for that patient is eligible to be included in the measure calculation and whether or not the quality action has been performed by the eligible professional.
The list of professionals eligible for PQRS include physicians, nurse practitioners, physical therapists and any others who bill for Medicare Part B Services.
In the 2012 program year, there are 208 different individual measures that can be submitted and 23 different measure groups. Physicians need to submit at least three measures or one group of measures to be eligible for an incentive payment from CMS.
The incentive payment for 2012, 2013 and 2014, is 0.5%–which works out to about $2000 per eligible professional depending on their Part B Medicare charges. Over the three years, that will add up quickly.
And–if an eligible professional does not participate in 2013, their payments will be adjusted downward by 1.5% starting in 2015. The adjustment will be -2.0 % starting in 2016, about $7000 for every year not reporting. This adds up to significant dollars, especially when multiplied over the all the eligible professionals in the practice.
With the extensive list of measures, all eligible professionals can find at least three that apply to their specialty.
In order to receive their incentive payments, eligible professionals must submit their data to CMS through a qualified third party–PQRS Solutions is one of those third parties.
This year eligible professionals have three ways they can submit. If they have paper charts, they submit through a “Registry” like PQRS Solutions. If they have an electronic medical record, they can use a data-submission vendor, such as Mingle Health. If their EMR vendor has qualified, they can submit to CMS directly from their EMR.
Mingle Health is the parent company of PQRS Solutions. CEO Dr. Dan Mingle has been at the forefront of quality reporting since the PQRS program began in 2007. He has assisted seven other registries in getting started. Mingle Health also offers practice improvement products and services to achieve balanced improvement for physician practices.
If you are an eligible professional interested in receiving your PQRS payment– contact us today. We’ll walk you through the process and make it easy for you to select measures and report the data. Want to learn more about Mingle Health or PQRS Solutions, visit our webpage at www.minglehealth.com.
Though the data can’t be submitted until January 2012, contact us now so we can get you started. It pays to get started early!
Dr. Dan Mingle and members of the team share their insights on how to maximize your success and payments for MIPS and APMs.