Take a deep breath. The last-minute flurry of adjustments and updates to last year’s PQRS reporting is over. And—brace yourselves. It’s time to dig into PQRS 2015, which, if you’ve been following our posts, requires a whole new level of rigor to avoid penalties under Pay for Performance. (Download our free eBook, Insider’s Guide to […]
Academic Medical Centers at Risk: How to Survive Medicare and Medicaid Value-Based Health Care
Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) provide care to the most complicated patients and have surmounted some of the worst clinical challenges of all time. Yet the biggest issue to threaten survival of AMCs might well be Medicare and Medicaid Value-Based Purchasing. While AMCs incorporate the training of new physicians in both community and highly specialized care, […]
PQRS 2014 Last Minute Checklist: What You Can and Can’t Do Now
With just a few days to go before the final reporting deadline, it’s time to cross the t’s and dot the i’s on PQRS 2014. There may be a few practices still trying to put together a reporting program, but almost everyone using a Registry and who has done the work is ready to […]
Tales from the PQRS Trenches: How to Avoid Harm to Your Practice and Patients
With less than three weeks until the final deadline of PQRS Registry Reporting for 2014 services, many providers are still scrambling to figure out their reporting strategy. They will have few—if any—options for success. It’s 2015, the requirements for PQRS reporting are entering their seventh year, and non-reporting penalties have been applied for two years. […]
PQRS Catch-22 for Specialists: How Medicare’s Division of Measures Can Put You at Risk for Penalties
If you are a specialist, maintaining your Medicare revenues just became more challenging. As of 2015, CMS now requires nine measures instead of three for PQRS reporting. They provided a partial reprieve by reducing the completion rate from 80 percent to only 50 percent. However, successful PQRS reporting is all or nothing—failure to report all […]
Avoid PQRS and VBPM Penalties and Achieve Long Term Revenues: How to Choose the Right QCDR
Can you optimize your Value-Based Payment Modifier (VBPM) quality and cost profile to demonstrate better outcomes than others and avoid both PQRS and VBPM penalties at the same time? Yes: Use a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) to do both. In 2014, the initial year of QCDR reporting, providers had the opportunity to report non-PQRS […]
Are “Flat-Line” Outcomes the Kiss of Death? How to Use a Registry for Outcomes Improvement Research
Despite a huge investment in health care, we have yet to demonstrate real progress in improving outcomes. A major study of patient outcomes last year revealed disappointing “flat-line” results for patient-centered medical home services, which means no difference in outcomes over time, regardless of significant expenditures. And that’s just the beginning. Assessments of cancer outcomes, preventive […]
Medicare Is Playing by 2015 Rules—Are You?
Does it feel like 2015 yet? While we may fill out paperwork that reads “2014 2015” for the next few weeks, 2015 is here—and it’s different. Do you need evidence? The 2015 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule is officially in effect. Several hundred pages within the 1200-page “Final Rule” describe the rules for the 2015 Physician Quality […]
New Year’s Resolution: Know the Difference Between PQRS and Meaningful Use
No one wants another CMS penalty letter this coming year. Especially after the past two weeks, when many providers from coast to coast learned that their Medicare Part B reimbursements in 2015 will be cut by 1.5 percent, since they were eligible but did not participate in PQRS 2013. Caught by surprise, some providers were shocked […]
Health Care 2014: Where Do We Go from Here?
This week, many of us will sit around Thanksgiving tables, giving thanks for our families and friends, food and shelter, and living in this good land. We might also say, this land where we have access to some of the best health care on earth. So how interesting that we have spent the last several […]