AHA developed four new resources designed to help PAC providers meet MACRA reporting requirements.
The American Hospital Association recently released a suite of resources geared toward helping post-acute care providers fulfill MACRA reporting requirements under the value-based care system.
“MACRA represents a major shift in how clinicians are evaluated and paid, and providers of all types—inpatient, outpatient, and post-acute will feel the effects of this shift,” wrote AHA. “Providers who employ their clinicians will be influenced directly, as payments for clinician services could experience up to an 18 percent swing as much as a 9 percent penalty or bonus starting in 2022.”
AHA emphasized that clinicians may need assistance meeting reporting requirements and suggested healthcare organizations leverage existing health data, invest in new health IT capabilities, or engage in care management activities to better the chances of complying with federal regulations.
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Each of the four resources are intended to help providers determine which measures their healthcare organizations are best positioned to fulfill.
First, AHA released an on-demand webinar containing information about how MACRA affects PAC providers. The webinar includes a breakdown of the basics of MACRA, as well as information about how MACRA may change in the future.
AHA also released a Merit-Based Incentive Payment System Quality Reporting Program Crosswalk. This guidance includes information about CMS quality measures.
“Clinicians in the MIPS track are required to report on six quality measures, including an outcome measure, for a minimum of 90 days,” noted AHA. “CMS has a list of more than 270 quality measures from which to choose. However, most measures are procedural or more generally relevant to the acute-care setting.”
The resource lists MIPS measures that use data that may have already been collected for PAC quality reporting programs.
Next, AHA offered PAC providers a qualified clinical data registry list. There are myriad benefits of reporting quality data through QCDRs.
“Clinicians have several options for how they report quality data,” stated AHA. “One options is a QCDR, a CMS-approved reporting mechanism that collects medical and/or clinical data for the purpose of patient and disease tracking to foster improvement in care.”
QCDRs are capable of completing quality measure data collection and submission on behalf of eligible professionals.
“In addition, QCDRs are often specialty-specific and collect data that is frequently more robust than what is required by CMS; they sometimes provide quality improvement tools like performance comparisons to national benchmarks,” wrote AHA.
EPs that report Quality Payment Program data to QCDRs automatically fulfill MIPS reporting requirements.
To compile the list of QCDRs specifically geared toward assisting PACs, AHA went through the CMS-provided master list of all QCDRs and selected only those that support MIPS data for post-acute providers.
“This database shows information on how to contact the registry, the MIPS measures supported, and the services offered and cost of using the registry,” stated the association.
Finally, AHA offered a discussion guide to help healthcare organizations review the benefits, risks, and other considerations inherent to participating in alternative payment models.
“As providers move from fee-for-service toward fee-for-value, many organizations are exploring APMs that reward high-quality and efficient care,” wrote AHA. “This means that acute care providers will likely be interested in partnering with post-acute care providers, as clinicians are increasingly responsible for the long-term health of their patients.”
The discussion guide helps uncertain PAC providers determine whether joining an APM is the right decision for their specific organization.
With these resources publically available, PAC providers concerned about their level of MACRA preparedness can gain insight into how to ensure a smoother transition to value-based care.
Date: Dec 14, 2017