Incomplete Picture of Otolaryngologist Performance in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System

To the Editor I appreciate the hard work and excellent analysis of Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) performance in the article by Xiao et al, “Otolaryngologist Performance in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System in 2017.” However, I have 1 major concern with the article’s depiction of otolaryngologists’ performance because it leaves the impression with the readership that this is a complete picture of 2017 MIPS performance. Sp ecifically, the Individual Eligible Clinician File with MIPS scores (both individual and group) has only 376 170 rows, compared with more than 1 000 000 clinicians participating in MIPS. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services described the first year of MIPS as the following: “We cal culated that 1 057 824 MIPS eligible clinicians will receive a MIPS payment adjustment, either positive, neutral, or negative. Of that population, 1 006 319 MIPS eligible clinicians reported data as either an individual, as a part of a group, or through an Alternative Payment Model (APM) and received a neutral payment adjustment or better.”
Source: JAMA Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery - Category: ENT & OMF Source Type: research