MACRA, MIPS, APM… the alphabet soup of medical documentation and billing can be daunting. Providers trained to improve health find themselves juggling patient care with the requirements of getting paid for that care. Having a MIPS registry tool is critical for many providers who want to accomplish both effectively.
A mobile charge capture tool with a certified MIPS registry is an easily implemented and intuitive solution to help physicians get back to the practice of medicine while qualifying for incentives under the MIPS program.
What is MIPS?
In its efforts to drive healthcare from fee-for-service to value-based care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has restructured several of its value-based programs. Under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), healthcare providers must show improved care at lower costs via one of two reporting tracks: the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) or Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APM). Although more complex, MIPS provides greater flexibility and is often the preferred choice for providers.
MIPS ties payments to high-quality and cost-efficient care, drives improvement in care processes and health outcomes, increases the use of healthcare information and reduces the cost of care.
Through MIPS, parts of three previous programs are combined into a single program in which eligible clinicians (EC) are measured on quality, promoting interoperability, improvement activities and cost. There are financial implications for MIPS-eligible clinicians who choose not to report. An EC’s MIPS score determines MACRA incentives or penalties, which range from ±9 percent for 2020.
The performance threshold (the number of MIPS points needed to avoid any penalties) has been increased to 45 MIPS points for 2020 and 60 MIPS points for 2021. Additionally, the exceptional performance threshold to achieve a bonus has increased to 85 MIPS points for 2020 and 2021.
How does mobile charge capture facilitate higher revenues under MIPS?
Mobile charge capture is a standalone tool that accurately captures data on a smart phone at the point of care and follows a provider to multiple care delivery locations.
Mobile charge capture not only makes data collection easy but also helps healthcare organizations use the data more effectively, including MIPS registry and reporting. Performance is monitored in real time. With its ability to download data and combine it with EHRs and other sources, physician groups and hospitals can see provider-level data and start adopting best practices and preemptively addressing shortfalls.
As noted in our “Act Now to Avoid Penalties” blog post, the EHR access required for MIPS reporting is not available to many contracted clinicians. Providers working at hospitals and other facilities should be aware that, in 2019, CMS added a facility-based scoring option for MIPS submissions. Learn more about that change in another post, “Facility-based Scoring: Your 2019 MIPS Safety Net.”
What is a qualified registry?
Qualified registries are entities that have been certified by CMS to accept MIPS quality data from clinicians, evaluate their performance for the year and submit their participation results directly to CMS.
Why use Ingenious Med for MIPS registry and reporting?
Since 2010, Ingenious Med has offered a qualified registry that meets all CMS requirements and is HIPAA compliant. This registry reliably captures and easily submits data to CMS, and has consistently achieved a 100 percent acceptance rate.
With more than 20 years working across the care continuum, Ingenious Med is used by 70 percent of the largest health systems and physician management groups. Our mobile charge capture solution optimizes physician productivity and hospital performance, with easily implemented point-of-care tools that help healthcare organizations gain more insights from data, simplify workflows and increase revenues.
To identify quality measures, Ingenious Med offers webinars on best practices and recommendations on the best measures to report. Our app identifies encounters that require reporting, automates coding for triggered quality measures, simplifies coding language for physicians and offers reporting capabilities that improve performance. A Quality Measures Performance Details report gives event-level information for every measure triggered, including patient identifiers, billing clinician, measure triggered and response given. An indicator allows sorting by answered and unanswered measures. Data is prepared and transmitted directly to CMS, and submission is verified with an immediate response.
Resulting in an average ROI of 13–15x, Ingenious Med charge capture tools pay for themselves within 6 months. Our revenue optimization calculator will show you your potential revenue increase.
To learn more about optimizing your MIPS registry and reporting, contact an Ingenious Med representative at 770.799.0909 or visit ingeniousmed.com/demo.