MIPS first-year results: Strong participation, weak incentives for quality improvement
Medical Economics October 2, 2020
The study appears in the September 2020 issue of Health Affairs
The vast majority of clinicians participating in the first year of the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) avoided a financial penalty. But that seemingly positive result masked a lack of overall improvement in the categories MIPS measures, according to a new study.
Authorized by Congress as part of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, MIPS is designed to improve doctors’ performance through increases or reductions—also called payment adjustments—in their Medicare reimbursements. The payment adjustments are based on participants’ scores in the categories of quality, improvement activities, and advancing care information.
The study looks at MIPS scores of about 879,000 clinicians from 2017, the first year...