Anesthesiologists and their groups participating in the Quality Payment Program (QPP) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) pathway will encounter several new regulations and regulatory burdens associated with the Improvement Activities (IA) performance category. This year marks the fourth year of the QPP, and although there are several features of the program that were predictable and others that demonstrated continuity, changes to the IA category now require that 50 percent of a group’s National Provider Identifier (NPIs) participate in an IA, up from just one Eligible Clinician (EC) in previous years.
As many anesthesiologists are aware, MIPS is made up of four performance categories: Quality, Cost, Promoting Interoperability and Improvement Activities. Each of these categories holds a certain weight, as scores from those categories are added together to determine an EC or group’s final MIPS score. In 2020, the Quality performance category comprises 45 percent of the score, the Cost category...
