The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is mailing letters letting you know if you need to take part in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) program established under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) legislation. Clinicians should participate in MIPS for the 2017 transition year if they bill more than $30,000 in Medicare Part B allowed charges a year AND provide care for more than 100 Part B-enrolled Medicare beneficiaries a year.
CMS has been reviewing claims and letting practices know which clinicians need to take part in MIPS,  which is an important part of the new Quality Payment Program. The letters, which are being sent through May, are from the Medicare Administrative Contractor that processes Medicare Part B claims and will tell the participation status of each MIPS clinician associated with the Taxpayer Identification Number or TIN in a practice.
The Quality Payment Program intends to shift reimbursement from the volume of services provided toward a payment system that rewards clinicians for their overall work in delivering the best care for patients.  It replaces the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and streamlines the “Legacy Programs” Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), the Value-based Payment Modifier (VM), and the Medicare Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program.
Learn more about the Quality Payment Program and the Quality Payment Program MIPS Participation status mailing (these materials can also be found on the Education & Tools page of the Quality Payment Program website).
Resources abound
If you’re just not sure where to begin, the MACRA page on the NCMS website is a good place to start. We’ve outlined the Six Steps to Understanding MACRA along with the key resources offered by CMS and the AMA. You may also want to sign up for the CMS Quality Payment Program listserv to get all the latest news straight from CMS. To subscribe, visit the Quality Payment Program portal and select “Subscribe to Email Updates” in the footer.
For clinicians in small, rural and underserved areas, CMS recently released a series of seven short (15-minutes or less) videos you can watch when you have the time. These micro videos are available on YouTube and at the bottom of the CMS Events page, under “Informational videos.”
All Quality Payment Program videos are listed on the main playlist.