9 Tips to Excel with MIPS in 2018

This article was updated on July 2, 2018, to reflect the updated MIPS categories and may differ from the original posting on Orthobuzz.

Even in 2018 MIPS—the Merit-based Incentive Payment System—is still a mystery to many orthopaedic surgeons, but it can have a big positive or negative impact on your practice.

MIPS is a federal improvement-incentive program consisting of Quality, Promoting Interoperability (PI) formerly known as Advancing Care Information, Improvement Activities (IA) and Cost components. To demonstrate excellent performance (and reap the associated rewards), physicians can choose the activities and measures that are most meaningful for their practice. Weights are assigned to each category based on a 1 to 100 point scale. In 2018, the weights are as follows: Quality- 50 percent, Cost-10 percent, Improvement Activities (IA)-15 percent and Promoting Interoperability (PI) -25 percent.

I often hear a lot of grumbling from colleagues about their electronic health record (EHR) systems as one of the major causes of physician burnout. However, implementing the right technology will help you excel under this new reimbursement model.

Here are 9 MIPS tips related to EHRs for 2018:

• Choose the Quality measures that best fit your practice. You need at least 20 eligible cases per measure for that measure to earn more than 3 points. You can go to qpp.cms.gov to learn measure specifications and decide which measures work best for your practice.
• In 2018, the performance periods are as follows: Quality must be a full year, Cost is evaluated for a full year, and the PI and IA categories can still be a minimum of 90 consecutive days up to a full year.
• Make sure your EHR has built-in dashboards that enable you to keep an eye on your composite score in near real-time, from day-to-day.
• Be sure that the EHR you select captures data being entered at the point of care and can enable this data to be used for multiple purposes.
• Get a head start on the Promoting Interoperability (PI) category.
• Earn bonus points via Public Health/Specialized Registry reporting as well as selecting Improvement Activities (IA) that are met using a certified EHR.
• Make sure your EHR allows you to compare your performance with that of your peers using analytical tools.
• When engaging in Improvement Activities (IA), follow guidelines based on your specific practice size.
• Submit only the required number of Improvement Activities (IA) for the given measurement year as there are no extra points for extra activities.

With the shift to MIPS and value-based care, orthopaedic surgeons and their teams can thrive by adapting and utilizing technology that fits within their workflows and that helps them understand how they are performing in real time, both within their own practices and compared with their peers nationwide.

Jason Weisstein, MD, MPH, FACS is the Medical Director of Orthopedics at Modernizing Medicine.