Hot Topics: Understanding MIPS for Therapists

What is MIPS?

The Merit Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) was established under Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015. MIPS is designed to provide incentives for providers for certain quality measures, improvement activities, and the use of EMRs that meet certain standards. MIPS scoring for physical therapists, occupational therapists and qualified speech therapists is based on:

• Quality Measures which are partly developed from the Physician's Quality Reporting System (PQRS).
• Improvement Activities which require providers to attest that they have participated in projects to improve care coordination, beneficiary engagement, and patient safety.

What are the latest updates on MIPS?

Read Jerry Henderson's blog for the updates from July 2018 about FLR and MIPS.

What is the MIPS relationship to the quality payment program?

MIPS is one of two tracks in the Quality Payment Program, which was developed to help improve Medicare by helping care givers focus on care quality making patients healthier. It repeals:

• The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) Formula
• Streamlines multiple quality reporting programs into the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)
• Provides incentive payments for participation in Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APMs)

What is the overall goal of MIPS?

CMS wants to increase the focus on quality and value-based care. MIPS is one of the programs designed to help achieve this.

Who is eligible to participate in MIPS?

“MIPS” eligible clinicians like physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists who participate in Medicare Part B.

How does MIPS work?

Therapists earn a payment adjustment based on evidence-based and practice-specific quality data. Therapists show they provided high quality, efficient care supported by technology by sending in information in the following categories.

MIPS is comprised of four Performance Categories that make up a composite performance score (CPS) of a possible 100 points. Only two performance categories apply to physical therapists, occupational therapists and qualified speech therapists at this time. These are the quality and improvement activities categories. Therapists can submit their individual score or a score for their entire group.

What will determine a therapist’s MIPS score?

A therapist’s MIPS performance score will factor in performance in two weighted performance categories. The scale is based on a 0-100 point scale:

When and what do therapists need to do regarding MIPS?

How does the MIPS payment adjustment work?

The payment-adjustment year is two years after the data-collection year. That means that when a therapist reports in 2019, the adjustment will be made to payments in 2021.

Under MIPS therapists with composite scores below the performance threshold will be subject to MIPS penalties on a sliding scale, with maximum penalties of up to 7% in 2021, and 9% in 2022 and beyond.

What tools or systems can help OT, PT and SLP Practices support MIPS?

• An EMR designed specifically for therapy
• A single system for clinical and financial data
• Patient engagement tools
• Outcome reporting tools
• Data analytics
• Interoperability

Disclaimer

The information provided herein is intended to be general in nature. It is not offered as legal or insurance related advice, and is not a complete description, or meant, or intended, to replace or be interpreted as specific, of Medicare requirements. Although every effort has been made to ensure the content herein is correct, we assume no responsibility for its accuracy. Contact Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Services for more information.