AHA shares suggestions for new physician payment models with Congress

The AHA today submitted to the House Energy and Commerce Committee several overarching recommendations for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System and alternative payment models, which will affect Medicare physician fee schedule payments beginning in 2019 under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. In a statement for a hearing on implementing the payment reforms, AHA urged the adoption of a MIPS that “measures providers fairly, minimizes unnecessary data collection and reporting burden, focuses on important quality issues and promotes collaboration across the silos of the health care delivery system.” To achieve this, the association said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should streamline physician quality reporting measures and options; risk adjust rigorously where appropriate; allow hospital-based physicians to use their hospital’s quality reporting and pay-for-performance measures for the MIPS; and align Electronic Health Record Incentive Program changes for physicians with those for eligible hospitals while avoiding an “all-or-nothing” scoring approach. AHA also urged CMS to implement the alternative payment models in a manner that provides the greatest opportunity for physicians to become qualified participants, and adopt a broad exception to fraud and abuse laws that impede collaboration and improvement across the care continuum.