Planning for MIPS Success – EHR Use (Advancing Care Information)

This is Part II of our series on MIPS.  See Quality Measures for Part I on the Quality Portion of MIPS.

As references in Part I, CMS has a good website on the overall MIPS program: https://qpp.cms.gov/

This week we will cover the Advancing Care Information (EHR) portion:

For 2016 you’ll need to choose the option based upon your EHR’s certification:

Option 1: EHR certified to 2015 standards or combination of 2014 and 2015 standards

Option 2: This is also available for the same (2015 or combination of 2014 and 2015) but is also available if your EHR is/was solely certified to 2014 standards in 2017.

More than likely your EHR is not yet certified to 2015 because CMS just recently finalized the certification requirements and test scripts.  However, it does not matter as it is perfectly acceptable and just as easy to select Option 1 provided your EHR provides and MIPS ACI report for this measure.  If in doubt, contact your EHR vendor.

Base Score:

While the CMS website above does a very good job with the Quality Reporting aspect of MIPS, it is a little lacking on the ACI/EHR measures.   CMS provides more information starting on pages 4-8 of this publication: https://qpp.cms.gov/docs/QPP_ACI_Fact_Sheet.pdf

To participate in this portion of MIPS you will need to earn at least the Base Score.  You can then earn additional points on your Performance Score.  

Planning is Key to Your Success:

• • Review the reporting in your current EHR to ensure you are already meeting the Base Score
  • If you are not already meeting the Base Score work with your EHR vendor to learn why and what you must do differently to meet the Base Score
  • Review the reporting in your current EHR for your Performance Scores.  

• If measures today for the last 90 days would you meet the Base Score?  What would you score on the Performance Score?

Make Your Plan:

• Finalize your objectives.  Do you want to achieve the Base Score?  Do you want to achieve strong Performance Scores?  
• What do activities/processes do you need to start or reinforce with your staff to achieve your goals?  Does your EHR have tools that can help?
• Schedule periodic reporting to check progress – share results with your staff

Last but not least, consider some type of bonus or incentive plan for achieving results. Achieving Base and High Performance Scores on ACI will help you achieve up to a 4% bonus on your 2019 Medicare reimbursements.