If MACRA Fails, It Will Be a Failure of IT, Not Doctors or Regulators

The following is a guest blog by Steve Daniels, president of Able Health. There has been a whole lot of mudslinging over the last month between regulators and healthcare providers over MACRA, which shifts Medicare payments further toward pay-for-performance starting January 1. On the one hand, CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt is clear that CMS is ready for change. “We need to get out of the mode of paying physicians just to run tests and prescribe medicines,” he told a Senate Finance Committee hearing. Meanwhile, Dr. Thomas Eppes of the American Medical Association has called MACRA a “quantum shift” and pushed for a delay. Yes, the Medicare Quality Payment Program instituted by MACRA should—and will—evolve based on comments made on the proposed rule. But the reality is the program provides enormous opportunity for providers to increase bonus payments, while streamlining reporting requirements across a patchwork of outdated and duplicative programs. And it’s worth noting that the potential penalties under the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) over the next four years are actually lower than the sum of the penalties of the programs it is replacing. To meet MACRA goals, it will take a well-prepared team of providers and administrators—empowered by data and well-designed tools. Doctors can’t be solely responsible for achieving patient outcomes, reducing costs and documenting it all for CMS as they go. Unfortunately, the history of health ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Digital Health EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Healthcare HealthCare IT MACRA Meaningful Use Population Health Management Practice Management American Medical Association Andy Slavitt CMS Dr. Thomas E Source Type: blogs