The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is implementing multiple flexibilities across multiple performance years for the Quality Payment Program (QPP) in response to the 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic public health emergency (PHE).
- CMS is continuing their Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances (EUC) policy for clinicians, groups and virtual groups to apply to request reweighting of one or more MIPS performance categories
- If approved the performance categories in the application will be reweighted to 0%
- Any data submission will void approved applications on a category-by-category basis
- Deadline to submit application for EUC is February 1, 2021 for the 2020 Performance Year
- A new high-weighted COVID-19 clinical trails Improvement Activity was previously announced
- Medicare 2021 Physician Fee Schedule includes provisions:
- Allowing APM Entities to submit an extreme and uncontrollable circumstances exception application for reweighting of MIPS performance categories for the 2020 performance year.
- Revising the Complex Patient Bonus to account for additional complexity in treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic (clinicians, groups, virtual groups and APM Entities could earn up to 10 bonus points towards their final score for the 2020 performance year)
For questions, you can contact the Quality Payment program at 1-866-288-8292, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET or by e-mail at QPP@cms.hhs.gov.
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