The Value of Using a Certified EHR Technology for MIPS Reporting
If you’re thinking of using health information technology (IT) such as an electronic health record (EHR) in your practice, be sure to choose certified EHR technology. Among the many benefits it can provide, EHR technology certified to the standards and criteria established by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC) can support you in all four performance categories of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).
In fact, a certified EHR technology not only gives you the opportunity to earn bonus points within the Quality category, it’s also required to meet the Advancing Care Information category.
The Four Pillars of MIPS Reporting
MIPS includes four connected pillars that affect how Medicare will pay you: Quality, Improvement Activities, Advancing Care Information, and Cost.
Each of these four areas include specific reporting requirements, and certified EHR technology can be a major asset in capturing, calculating, and submitting information to CMS for every category.
MIPS Success Using Your Certified EHR Technology
Your certified EHR technology may help with all your MIPS reporting. But for some categories, it’s necessary.
You are required to use certified EHR technology to comply with the Advancing Care Information category, and if you want to earn certain bonus points within the Quality category, your EHR must be a certified health information technology.
Certified EHR technology can help streamline the administrative processes necessary to capture, calculate, and report the required data to CMS.
At ONC, we created the EHR Certification Program to clearly define the standards and other criteria for structured data that EHRs must use. We did this to provide consistency across the industry, aid in technology systems’ ability to securely share data with each other, and promote your ability to use certified EHR technology to provide care and access critical quality data for improvement and reporting.
MIPS Reporting Impacts Your Scoring!
Reporting information to CMS about your performance in the four performance categories impacts your MIPS score. The three categories that directly impact your score—Quality, Improvement Activities, and Advancing Care Information—all either require or benefit from using certified EHR technology.
Transition Year Weights
In determining a total score, specific weights are assigned to each of the four performance categories for 2017:
