Could MIPS Data Be Used Against Physicians?

One of the major changes thanks to MACRA and its associated Quality Payment Program (QPP) is the creation of MIPS, of the Merit-based Incentive Payment System. Much has been made about this new way physicians will be evaluated under Medicare. However, we have not seen the take of MIPS scores being used in other domains, such as medical malpractice lawsuits, until we came across this consulting firm’s hypothetical. Could MIPS data be used against physicians? Hypothetical Malpractice Case As described on MyMipsScores’ blog: “[H]ere is another collateral effect of the MIPS score. This one is for our friends in the legal community and and I was made aware of it by our friend, Chuck Pope. Let’s say you are defending a provider who is being sued for malpractice. What if your provider client has a low MIPS score, say 23, and this is allowed to be entered into the proceedings. All the other side would have to do is point to the defendant’s MIPS score and the definition of the score as described by CMS: The Composite Performance Score is based on four performance categories      Quality         Resource use        Clinical practice improvement activities        Meaningful use of certified electronic health records (EHR) technology Not looking so good for your client. On the other side, if a medical expert witness is on the stand and happens to have a high MIPS score...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs