MACRA Survival Series: Essentials for the small practice
eGuide
2017 is a pivotal year for clinicians participating in Medicare regulatory programs. MACRA legislation replaces the Medicare Meaningful Use program and PQRS with the Quality Payment Program (QPP). To ease the transition, CMS offers three options; Test, Partial or Full. The ‘test option’ allows you to submit a minimum amount of data.
The test option is a good thing, right? Sort of. There are penalties in 2017 for qualifying clinicians who do nothing in 2017 and you do want to be sure you are sending the right data to meet the test option requirements. And the test option may not adequately prepare you for the 2018-reporting year when the negative payment adjustment increases to 5%. Here’s the small practice guide to making the most of your transition year and prepare for 2018. If your practice isn’t fully participating, you could get as much as a 5% negative payment adjustment on 2020’s Medicare Part B claims.1
It would be like if a college allowed students to spend the first semester of the school year exploring any classes they wanted. No grades on homework—just as a learning opportunity. Then, once students found the best classes for their unique needs, the real coursework would begin. Students could receive perfect grades in their final classes even if they’d spent a good portion of the year auditing classes like “Learning from YouTube” and “The Physics of Star Trek,” which actually exist, by the way.
