MIPS Tip Tuesday

Did you know that not all clinical practice improvement activities (CPIAs) are treated equally?

If you read Dr. Ketchersid’s blog post this Monday, you probably already know that each improvement activity is assigned a weight of either heavy (20 points) or medium (10 points). A clinician will need to earn either 20 points OR 40 points in CPIAs to get a perfect score.

• Clinicians in a large group (16 or more clinicians) will need to earn 40 points.

• Clinicians in a small practice (15 or fewer clinicians) OR clinicians who are in a rural area or an HSPA will need to earn 20 points.

• Clinicians in a certified patient-centered medical home, comparable specialty practice or an APM designated as a Medical Home Model will earn full credit.

• Clinicians in certain APMs (current APMs under the APM scoring standard such as MSSP track 1) will earn full credit. For all future APMs under the APM scoring standard, clinicians will earn at least half credit.

But wait – there’s more! Did you know that some clinical practice improvement activities can also earn you bonus points in the Advancing Care Information section of MIPS? Using certified EHR technology (CEHRT) to meet certain improvement activities can earn a maximum of 10 bonus points in ACI! Think of it as two birds with one stone.

An example of a double-whammy improvement activity can be found below. A list of all eligible CPIAs that can earn an ACI bonus can be found in Table 8 of the final rule.

If you are participating in MIPS, and not in the “test path,” I recommend finding improvement activities that could also help you out in ACI!

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Diana Strubler, Policy and Standards Senior Manager, joined Acumen in 2010 as an EHR trainer then quickly moved into the role of certification and health IT standards subject matter expert. She has successfully led Acumen through three certifications while also guiding our company and customers through the world of Meaningful Use, ICD-10 and PQRS.