Hospital Execs Underestimate QPP Impact

A new survey by Nuance Communications suggests that hospital finance leaders aren’t prepared to meet the demands of MACRA’s Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), and may not understand the extent to which MIPS could impact their bottom line. Worse, survey results suggest that many of those who were convinced they knew what was involved in meeting program demands were dead wrong.

The survey found that many hospital finance leaders weren’t aware that if they don’t participate in the MIPS Quality Payment Program (QPP), they could see a 4% reduction in Medicare reimbursements by 2019.

Not only that, those who were aware of the program didn’t have a great grasp of the details. More than 75% respondents that claimed to be somewhat or very confident about their understanding of QPP got the 4% at-risk number wrong. Meanwhile, 60% of respondents either underestimated the percent of revenue at risk or simply did not know what the number was.

In addition, a significant number of respondents weren’t aware of key QPP reporting requirements. For example, just 35% of finance respondents that felt confident they understood QPP requirements actually knew that they had to submit 90 day of quality data to participate. Meanwhile, 50% either underestimated or did not know how many days of data they needed to provide.

On a broader level, as Nuance noted, the issue is that hospitals aren’t ready to meet QPP demands even if they do know what’s at stake. Too many aren’t prepared to capture complete clinical documentation, develop business processes to support this data capture and raise provider awareness of these issues. In other words, not only are finance leaders unaware of some key QPP requirements, they may not have the infrastructure to meet them.

This is a big deal. Not only will their organizations lose money if they don’t meet QPP requirements, but they’ll miss out on a 5% positive Medicare payment adjustment if they play by the rules.

Lest the respondents sound careless, let’s do a reality check here. Without a doubt, the transition into the world of MIPS isn’t a simple one. Hospitals and medical practices will have to meet deadlines and present quality data in new ways. That would be a hassle in any event, but it’s particularly difficult given how many other quality data reporting requirements they must meet.

That being said, I’d argue that even if they’ve gotten a slow start, hospitals have enough time to meet the basic requirements of QPP compliance. For example, turning over 90 days of quality data by March of next year shouldn’t be a gigantic stretch in contrast to, say, submitting a year’s worth of data under advanced Meaningful Use models. Not to mention the Pick Your Pace option of only 1 measure which avoids all penalties.

Clearly, having the right health IT tools will be important to this process. (Not surprisingly, Nuance is picking its own reporting tools as part of the mix.) But I’m struck by the notion that organizations can’t live on technology alone in this case. As with many problems in healthcare, tech solutions aren’t worth much if the business doesn’t have the right processes in place. Let’s see if finance executives know at least that much.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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