From meaningful use to MACRA: What you need to know now

An AMA Viewpoints post by AMA Board Chair Stephen R. Permut, MD A new quality reporting and payment system for Medicare is on its way. As physicians we need to understand the choices we will make about participation. This change has been a long time coming, and it will take physicians leading the way to make sure it is a step in the right direction. How we got to this point Thanks to years of advocacy efforts and physician voices on the matter, we were able to secure passage of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) early in 2015. This legislation repealed the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula and creates the opportunity for making significant changes to the meaningful use program.  And through our Break the Red Tape grassroots campaign—which to date has featured three town halls on electronic health records (EHR) and meaningful use and collected thousands of physicians’ testimonies—the AMA was able to secure several key regulatory changes after the defeat of SGR. The important thing about these changes is that all were physician-led. The implementation of MACRA must also be physician-led if we want to secure a future that is designed for physicians and patients, rather than by insurance companies. The choices we have to make for our future As a result of our efforts, CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt in January said that the agency is changing its culture to focus on physician and patient needs. Then in February, Slavitt took...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news