This week, GIQuIC announced that the registry database has surpassed 3 million colonoscopies. The growth in procedures has been driven by a surge in the growth of the number of practices and physicians involved in this quality improvement initiative. More than 4,000 providers, which account for over a quarter of all U.S. gastroenterologists, now participate in GIQuIC – a number that has grown by 500 providers since last fall. Click here to read the announcement.
The GIQuIC registry has again been approved as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) for individual providers reporting to the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS). For 2016, providers who satisfactorily participate in PQRS will avoid the 2018 payment cut of 2%, a cut that could be up to an additional -4% via the “value-based payment modifier” (depending upon group size).
ACG does not endorse simply linking reimbursement to quality reporting. However, in the event that state and federal policymakers mandate quality reporting as a condition to payment, it is ACG’s goal to minimize practice management burdens and protect GI reimbursement as much as possible.
GIQuIC and the forthcoming “Merit-Based Incentive Payment System” (MIPS):
Beginning 2019 – but for the 2017 reporting period — CMS will consolidate current Medicare quality reporting programs such as PQRS, the value-based payment modifier and the EHR Meaningful Use program into one composite program. CMS adds “Clinical Practice Improvement Activities” as another category. Collectively, this new program is called the “Merit-Based Incentive Payment System” (MIPS). Medicare will develop a “composite score” or total performance score using a scoring scale of 0 to 100. This target score will be based upon previous years’ actual composite score data or other quality reporting data if no prior year data exists. MIPS providers will have scores for each performance category. Each category is separately weighted.
Your participation in GIQuIC may help you satisfy three of these four components. Please read ACG’s “Making $ense of MACRA” summary to learn more about using GIQuIC to fulfill these forthcoming requirements.
Click here to learn more about signing your practice up for GIQuIC.
Irving M. Pike, MD, FACG
Vice President, American College of Gastroenterology