Aug 26 2017
The American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine submitted a comment letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on August 21 regarding its proposed rule changes on Medicare payment and delivery reform enacted by MACRA (Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act). The MACRA legislation represented a complete overhaul of the structure of physician payments under Medicare with a new framework called the Quality Payment Program (QPP), which went into effect January 1, 2017. AANEM provided extensive comments and suggestions to CMS on how to improve the performance-based payments for all physicians but, specifically, for neuromuscular and EDX physicians. Many AANEM members have struggled to meet the various requirements of the current QPP and past Medicare value-based programs ("Meaningful Use of EHRs," PQRS and Value-Based Modifier) because the programs simply weren't designed with most specialists or sub-specialists in mind. While the changes proposed in this rule demonstrate that CMS is beginning to listen to specialists and organizations, like AANEM, there are still improvements to be made. For a summary of the changes in the rule, please visit CMS's website: https://qpp.cms.gov/docs/QPP_Proposed_Rule_for_QPP_Year_2.pdf.
The Final Rule implementing MACRA is due to be released this fall. In the meantime, AANEM will begin updating the MACRA/QPP member resources on its website: http://www.aanem.org/Practice/Medicare/MACRA.
Source: https://www.aanem.org/News/Advocacy/AANEM-Comments-on-2018-MACRA-Proposed-Rule
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