AQI - Anesthesia Quality Institute

Upcoming registration deadlines

The deadline for providers to register in 2019 NACOR Basic, NACOR Benchmarking or NACOR Quality Reporting is Thursday, October 31. ASA members who will be participating in 2019 NACOR Quality Reporting must complete their 2019 ASA membership renewal by the end of business on Tuesday, October 1. Members who have not renewed their memberships by October 1 will be charged the NACOR non-member rates for 2019 quality reporting.

MIPS Improvement Activities account for 15 percent of score

For the 2019 performance year, Improvement Activities will again account for 15 percent of the total Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) score for eligible clinicians (ECs)/groups. MIPS-eligible clinicians will have more than 100 Improvement Activities to choose.

It is in the best interest of ECs/groups to report on all required MIPS components, including Improvement Activities, to be eligible to receive a positive payment adjustment. Review ASA's Recommended Improvement Activities for Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine.

To earn full credit in this performance category, each activity must be performed for 90 continuous days or more during 2019. The last 90-day period is October 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019.

Provider consents for individual reporting

AQI's NACOR is collecting consent forms from each Eligible Clinician (EC) who is enrolled in 2019 individual quality reporting, as required by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). AQI will only submit data to CMS for individual quality reporting for providers who have signed consent forms.

For those practices who have registered for 2019 Quality Reporting the paper consent form was attached to the confirmation email that was sent by AQI.

Email askaqi@asahq.org with any questions regarding the consent process.

RESOURCES

2019 Resources

NACOR News Library

Office Hours FAQs

Question: If a provider has left the practice half way through the year - does the practice need to report the provider's cases?

If the practice is reporting as a group and the provider performed cases in 2018, the practice needs to be reporting 60% of all eligible cases for that provider regardless if they are still at the practice or not as CMS is evaluating the data at the TIN level not the individual NPI. If the practice is individually reporting, the data will follow the provider's NPI.

Question: In regards to the reporting year on the AQI website it state to submit 60% of eligible cases and we understand it is not pick your pace but does this mean 60% of 2018 cases? Can you elaborate?

The 2018 MIPS reporting requirement is to report on 60% of the denominator eligible cases for 6 measures including 1 outcome measure for the 12 month reporting period (1/1/2018 - 12/31/18). For example, If your practice is reporting MIPS 76 - Prevention of Central Venous Catheter (CVC - Related Bloodstream Infections and places 75 central lines during 2018 your practice would need to report on 45 cases which is 60% of the eligible cases.

Question: Is it possible for all providers in a practice to be non-MIPS eligible and not required to submit data as individuals, but are eligible as a group?

Yes if the individual providers do not meet the 2018 MIPS participation criteria (billed $90,000 or less in Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) services furnished to Medicare Part B Fee-for-Service (FFS) beneficiaries (including Railroad Retirement Board and Medicare secondary Payer) and have 200 or fewer Medicare Part B FFS beneficiaries) the practice can be MIPS eligible as a group if the group has billed $90,000 or more in PFS services furnished to Medicare Part B beneficiaries and have 200 or more Medicare Part B beneficiaries.