In the February 2019 Practice Points column, Merit-based Incentive Payment System 2019 Changes, we reviewed the final changes to the 2019 Quality Payment Program Final Rule1 under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In this column, we will focus on the Promoting Interoperability performance category. This information is not exhaustive, and it remains your responsibility to read and understand how these changes affect your practice needs. The CMS references are provided along the way for you to build your resource library.
For Performance Year 2019, the 2015 Edition certified electronic health record technology (CEHRT) is required for participation in this performance category. Measures are no longer classified as base score or performance score measures. Participants must submit collected data for certain measures from each of the four objectives measures (unless an exclusion is claimed) for 90 or more continuous days during 2019. The scores for each of the individual measures will be added together to calculate the score of up to 100 possible points. If exclusions are claimed, the points for measures will be reallocated to other measures.
Additional Performance Improvement Requirements
In addition to submitting measures, clinicians must
- Submit a “yes” to the Prevention of Information Blocking Attestation. The CMS description: The Prevention of Information Blocking Attestation has three related statements that are based on section 106(b)(2) of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act about how healthcare providers implement and use CEHRT. When you attest to these three statements together, you are confirming that you have acted in good faith to support the appropriate exchange of electronic health information and not knowingly and have not willfully limited or restricted the compatibility or interoperability of the CEHRT.
To read the full article in “Advances in Skin & Wound Care” by Cathy Thomas Hess, click here.
Read previous articles in “Advances in Skin & Wound Care” by Cathy Thomas Hess in the link.
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Cathy is Chief Clinical Officer for WoundExpert® and Vice President at Net Health, and in addition to being the MIPS Clinical Consultant for WoundExpert. She gained over 30 years of expertise in various acute care, long-term care, sub-acute care facilities, home-health agencies, and outpatient wound care department settings. Cathy is the author of Clinical Guide to Skin and Wound Care (also translated into Italian and Portuguese) – Eighth Edition published in September of 2018.