Rheumatology plays a leading role among specialties included in the MIPS Value Pathways (MVPs), set to begin in 2023. With specialty-focused quality measures, the new payment model aims to streamline reporting and better target quality improvements.
Find out what you need to know to be ready for MVPs at an ACR Convergence 2021 session, Ahead of the Payment Curve: Keys for Reporting Success in the MIPS Value Pathway, to be held Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 9 a.m. EST.
The goal of MVPs is to simplify federal reporting for clinicians and incentivize quality improvement. With a new rheumatology-focused MVP, rheumatologists can assess their performance with targeted quality measures through the ACR’s RISE registry and access other ACR quality improvement resources.
“The MVP, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently proposed to push until 2023, will allow providers to submit two packages to the Quality Payment Program: MIPS and the MVPs,” says session moderator Angus B. Worthing, MD, FACP, FACR, a partner with Arthritis & Rheumatism Associates, Washington, D.C. “Medicare will calculate and use whichever is most advantageous to providers, so it’s worth learning about.”
Succeeding in an Evolving System
“In this session, we attempt to distill what is important to know and things to watch for over the next several years,” says Kent “Kwas” Huston, MD, a rheumatologist with Kansas City Physician Partners in Kansas City, Missouri.
Drs. Worthing and Huston, along with William F. Harvey, MD, MSc, FACR, clinical director of the Arthritis Treatment Center and chief informatics medical officer at Tufts Medical Center, Boston, will review the recent history of value-based payment models and teach rheumatologists how MVPs—including the proposed rheumatology MVP—will work.
“The session is really about succeeding in the evolving payment system,” Dr. Harvey says.
One advantage of the MVP is that it will take the framework of the original MIPS structure and make it more cohesive, reducing the reporting burden, Dr. Harvey says. It also will make participation in the resulting pathways more meaningful to rheumatologists’ work, he says. “In other words, get credit for the hard work we already do to take care of our patients,” Dr. Harvey says.
Rheumatology’s Leading Role
After some early hesitation about the movement toward value-based care, the ACR decided to help lead the development of these models to have a better say in the process, Dr. Harvey says.
Now, as one of only seven specialties with currently approved MVPs, rheumatology will have an advantage with the new payment model, Dr. Huston says. “Most specialties still don’t have a starting point,” he says. Other specialties that will be included initially are stroke care and prevention, heart disease, chronic disease management, emergency medicine, lower extremity joint repair and anesthesia.
Session leaders will present more details on which measures will be available to choose and how they will reflect MIPS weighting for quality, cost and other factors.
The ACR has planned to include measures that are already part of a rheumatologist’s typical workflow, Dr. Harvey says. These include:
- Tuberculosis screening for patients on biologics;
- Measuring disease activity; and
- Managing serum urate levels in the quality domain.
Pearls to Become an MVP on the MVPs
Session leaders shared pearls that they will expand on during Business of Rheum: Ahead of the Payment Curve to help practices get set up with MVPs:
- Start planning now. Recently, the new MVP program was pushed to start in 2023 instead of 2022. Use this extra time to plan for success.
- Reach out to the ACR if needed. The ACR wants to help rheumatologists succeed with the new MVP program and can guide you through it, Dr. Huston says.
- Consider using the RISE registry if you are not doing so already. “RISE participation can help with the improvement category, but you can also get credit for other things like telehealth and having access to your medical records while on call,” Dr. Harvey says.
- Analyze the quality measures that you already track. As you learn more about new model, consider how your practice is performing within the measures that will also be part of the MVP framework. What changes might you need to make for improvements? This type of reflection can boost your MVP success.
Vanessa Caceres is a medical writer in Bradenton, Florida.
