News: End MIPS, MedPAC urges Congress

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) issued its semiannual report to Congress last week with a recommendation that lawmakers end the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), HealthLeaders Media reported.

As MedPAC discussed in a January meeting, the 563-page report recommends replacing MIPS with a new alternative reimbursement model (titled the Voluntary Value Program [VVP]).

“We came to this determination based on a two-year analytic work in which we started examining ways in which MIPS might be improved,” MedPAC Executive Director James Mathews said during a media conference call last week. “We came to the conclusion that there were certain fundamental flaws in the premise of MIPS that could not be improved.”

Under the suggested VVP, according to the report:

• Clinicians could elect to be measured as part of a voluntary group; and
• Clinicians in voluntary groups could qualify for a value payment based on their group’s performance on a set of population-based measures

The VVP would measure all clinicians based on the same set of measures: clinical quality, patient experience, and value. Because these measures assess healthcare across a population, the program would “encourage clinicians to address care across time and across settings,” according to the report.

Though this isn’t the first time this year that MedPAC has recommended the end of MIPS, this marks their official recommendation to the powers that be. Congress is free to either take the recommendations or to ignore them, according to HealthLeaders Media.

Editor’s note: To read about MedPAC’s original vote to end MIPS, click here. To read HealthLeaders Media’s coverage of this story, click here.