May 3, 2021

At the invitation of the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), APMA met with its representatives via video conference yesterday to discuss its members’ ongoing frustrations with the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

The GAO is conducting these meetings in response to a congressional mandate, requiring a report evaluating the MIPS program no later than October 1. In its discussions with GAO, APMA highlighted the following significant concerns among others:

• Lack of meaningful measures for specialists to participate in
• High cost and burden for clinicians to participate successfully in MIPS, particularly those in small or solo practice, with little to no bonus incentive when compared to the penalty faced
• Annually shifting thresholds, benchmarks, and measures creating significant confusion for participating clinicians
• Lack of meaningful specialist participation data from CMS, following a performance year, that might help clinicians in that specialty guide their next performance year.

While the feedback provided in this meeting is to GAO for purposes of congressional review, APMA is hopeful it might open the door to more meaningful change in MIPS, with a shift toward patient-focused versus provider-centric, and burden reduction for our members.

For information and APMA resources related to the MIPS 2021 performance year, visit www.apma.org/MIPS2021.