CMS releases the 2022 Quality Payment Program Final Rule

In 2022, QPP participants will see some modifications to the program, including:

• The MIPS performance threshold will be set at 75 points with an exceptional performance bonus applied to those individuals and groups scoring over 89 points.
• Individuals and groups receiving less than 75 points will incur a payment penalty on a linear sliding scale up to 9% in 2024 with those scoring under 18.75 points incurring an automatic -9% adjustment.
• The quality and cost performance categories will be equally weighted at 30% of the total MIPS score. Promoting interoperability and Improvement Activities performance categories will maintain their respective 25% and 15% weights.
• The retirement of MIPS #44: Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG): Preoperative Beta-Blocker in Patients with Isolated CABG Surgery measure from the MIPS program.

Of note, CMS did not finalize its proposal to increase the completeness threshold to 80% in the MIPS Quality performance category in 2023. Instead, CMS will maintain a completeness of 70% for the next two years.

ASA expects to update its Quality Payment Program website in the next few weeks with regulatory information and the Anesthesia Quality Institute expects to publish its 2022 QCDR measures book by mid-December as well. CMS expects to publish the 2022 MIPS measure specifications and other regulatory guidance within the next few weeks on the QPP website.

For more information on these issues, please contact the ASA Department of Quality and Regulatory Affairs (QRA) at qra@asahq.org.

AQI Office Hours recording

The November office hour recording will be posted on the AQI website the week of November 15. This month’s topics include CMS updates on the 2022 Quality Reporting Final Rule, data file email reminders, data auditing, AQI practice audits, and an Improvement Activity dashboard demonstration.

December office hours will be live and are scheduled for December 14 at 11 a.m. CST. Please register here.

ASA/AQI Offices Closed November 22 - 26

The AQI offices will be closed the week of Thanksgiving. Messages sent to askaqi@asahq.org will be returned upon arrival back on November 29.

In addition, there will be no November 26 edition of NACOR News.

Quality Reporting data file notifications

AQI began sending notifications to 2021 Quality Reporting practices via email on November 1. There are two emails - one for practices that have uploaded a new data file and the other for those practices that have not yet submitted a data file for the 2021 MIPS performance year.

If a new data file has been uploaded, AQI encourages a member of your practice to review the NACOR dashboard as it will allow you to monitor your providers' performance as well as identify problems with measures submitted and make necessary corrections. The notifications will be sent every other week through the final data submission deadline on February 15, 2022.

If you have any questions, email askaqi@asahq.org.

Review your NACOR dashboard

Remember to review your 2021 quality reports in the NACOR dashboard. For practices that have uploaded a new data file, AQI encourages a member of your practice to review the NACOR dashboard as it allows you to monitor your providers' performance, as well as pinpoint any problems with the data and make necessary corrections prior to data submission deadlines.

• Data completeness requirements for the 2021 MIPS Performance Period are:
• Submit 12 months of data (January - December 2021).
• Report a minimum of six measures with at least one outcome or high priority measure.
• Measure must meet the 20-case minimum to be scored.
• Reporting rate must be at least 70% of all eligible cases across all payers for each measure reported.

Note: The minimum point threshold to avoid a negative payment adjustment has increased from 45 to 60 points for the 2021 performance year. It is important to check the measure performance rates for your practice to make sure the measures reported will earn the maximum points allowed for the Quality Component.

As a reminder, section 8 of the Addendum for Quality Reporting to the NACOR Participation Agreement states that your practice "and each EC agree, and Participant shall require each EC, to review his/her measure results in AQI at least four times a year and provide timely feedback to AQI on the measures that will be reported on the EC's behalf."

If there questions about the dashboard results, submit a ticket to nacorsupport@asahq.org. 

NACOR practice audits to begin in December

To remain in good standing as a Qualified Registry and Qualified Clinical Data Registry, AQI and its registry, NACOR, is required to submit an annual data validation plan to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

To help ensure continued compliance with CMS data validation standards, AQI will be auditing the Quality, Improvement Activity, and Promoting Interoperability components for randomly selected practices. Practices selected for audit will be notified via certified letter within the next 30 days with instructions on how to complete the audit.

For more information, email askaqi@asahq.org.