How Meaningful Use will change under MACRA-Quality Payment program

November 16, 2016

Written by Patty Kosednar

As you have probably heard, starting in 2017 the Medicare EHR Incentive Program (Meaningful Use) will become part of the Quality Payment Program (QPP) under the MACRA law.  The Medicaid EHR Incentive Program will remain as is, and will be a separate program.

There are a lot of questions out there about the Quality Payment Program.  HTS will be scheduling a MACRA-QPP webinar in early December (soon to be posted on our HTS calendar) to share more information about the program.  We also have a MACRA blog where you can find information about the Quality Payment Program; however, I did want to fill you in on the part of the program that applies to Meaningful Use.

Just to keep it simple, if you have providers that are currently meeting the requirements of the Meaningful Use program, they should meet the requirements under the Quality Payment Program.  In fact it will probably be easier.  If you want more info, read on.

There are 2 components of the Quality Payment Program, MIPS (Merit-Based Incentive Payment System) and APM (Alternative Payment Model).   What we know of as Meaningful Use is a performance category under the MIPS component called Advancing Care Information (ACI).

Again, if you have providers that have been successful attesting to the Medicare EHR Incentive Program, they should have no problem meeting the requirements of the ACI under MIPS.  There are some items to keep in mind as you prepare for the Quality Payment Program, specifically for the ACI performance category under MIPS.

Things to Keep in Mind

1. These are the measures required for 2017 ACI reporting (for required measures you only have to report 1 numerator for each threshold measure and be able to attest “yes” for the SRA measure to pass the ACI category, to get the base score):
   1. security risk assessment (SRA)
   2. E-Prescribing
   3. provide patient access (Patient Portal)
   4. health information exchange
2. Additional measures you can report in 2017 for higher scoring:
   1. view, download or transmit electronic patient information
   2. patient-specific education
   3. secure messaging
   4. medication reconciliation
   5. public heath reporting
3. Under MIPS the following provider types are eligible, so you may need to set them up in your EHR to begin collecting data for them, since they were not eligible for the Medicare MU program:
   1. MD
   2. PA
   3. NP
   4. CNS
   5. CRNA
4. If you have providers that are eligible for the Quality Payment Program (Medicare) and also for the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program (Meaningful Use), they will need to meet and attest to the requirements for both programs.
5. In 2018, part of the requirement for the ACI performance category is use of a 2015 certified version of your EHR.

There is a ton more you will need to know about the Quality Payment Program and the Advancing Care Information category for MIPS that we will provide detailed information on in the future.  I just wanted to send this out to hopefully put your mind at ease a bit about the Meaningful Use section of it.

If you have any questions, or run into issues with any of the meaningful use objectives and would like help, please use the “Leave a Reply” section below, or email Patty Kosednar directly with your questions or comments.

Resource Links

HTS MU Resources

CMS 2016 MU Requirements

See our MACRA-QPP Blog

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