The New MACRA Rule and EHNAC Impacts

CMS has now published the new MACRA/MIPS rule as a Final Rule with Comment Period. Interestingly, there will be a 60-day comment beginning on the publication date of the rule in the Federal Register on November 4th.

This is a rule focused on the revised Medicare Part B payment adjustments for physicians and other eligible providers. Individual physicians or groups will have their payments adjusted based on their performance in four areas – quality, cost, clinical practice improvement activities, and use of certified EHR technology. There are several requirements which impact EHNAC, encouraging providers to focus on entities with EHNAC certification.

Throughout the rule, CMS encourages the use of Qualified Clinical Data Registries for the submission of quality data, rather than using claims.

In the area of EHR use, CMS requires clinicians to conduct a security risk analysis. This again emphasizes the need for clinicians and their business associates to have conducted those risk analyses not only for EHRs but for other systems such as the practice management system. And those clinicians with integrated EHR/PMS systems or cloud based systems will have to ensure that their vendors are compliant and have conducted those risk analyses. EHNAC programs such as PMSAP can be used to show the necessary security features are in place at a vendor’s system.

EHNAC will continue to monitor the implementation of MACRA to see how our programs can assist clinicians.

  • Lee Barrett, Executive Director, EHNAC