I am excited to bring you the updates you need to know for 2018 and some of the lessons learned from 2017. To begin with, CMS has increased the number of eCQMS from 14 to 19 measures. The measure set contains 7 new measures and two measures have been retired. For 2018, you must successfully report 9 measures and (this is important) the two outcome measures (Controlling High Blood Pressure and Diabetes HbA1c) are mandatory.

As eCQMS are at the heart of meeting CPC+ quality requirements, we are happy to report that CMS has kept the benchmarks at the 30th and 70th percentiles and the measure thresholds remain the same. To be able to retain your PBIP payment, you still need to meet the 30th percentile for all 9 and the 70th percentile for at least 7 of the 9 measures. One of the lessons learned is that to achieve an optimal performance start early on tracking and monitoring these measures. A follow-on lesson being: Pay Attention to Care Management – it can help tremendously in improving performance.

CMS also announced changes to the Care Delivery Requirements for Track 1 and Track 2 practices. It is important to keep in mind that for audit purposes and to retain all the CMF (Care Management Fee) practices need to create and keep a record of a Care Plan and Risk Stratification information on ALL patients. Again, the time to act is now.
Call, visit our website or write to us @info@persivia.com,  to grab a copy of our white paper on how to quickly risk stratify your patient population and create and manage care plans for all your patients.

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