Medicare and the Quality Payment Program

ACP supports the goal of aligning physician payments with the efficient delivery of high quality care to patients. ACP also supports leveraging value-based payment to do away with unnecessary administrative burdens that divert physicians away from patient care. For the transition to work, performance measures used for payment or public accountability must be evidence-based, clinically relevant, and appropriate; and internists must be given ample opportunity to participate in a range of diverse alternative payment models that can accommodate a wide range of specialties, practice sizes, and unique patient populations. ACP has called on CMS to improve the current Quality Payment Program by improving the accuracy of performance metrics, streamlining MIPS subcategories and scoring, doing more to correct the performance gap for small and rural practices, and create more Advanced APMs. In the 2020 final Physician Fee Schedule, CMS announced plans to replace the existing MIPS Program with the new “MIPS Value Pathway,” which will begin to be phased in starting in 2021. ACP is actively working with CMS and other stakeholders to design this new program to make it work for internists and their patients. ACP has also pressed for multi-payer alignment of performance metrics and value-based payment initiatives to minimize burden on physicians.

• PolicyPromoting Transparency and Alignment in Medicare Advantage 10/2017
• PolicyReforming Medicare in the Age of Deficit Reduction 4/2012

Joint Congressional Briefing About the Need to Stabilize, Strengthen and Sustain Primary Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic (10/7/2020)

ACP joined with the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics to hold a virtual briefing to tell congressional staffers what Congress should do to help primary care physicians deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch Video

Latest Advocacy Efforts

• StatementJoint Asks to Congress to Stabilize, Strengthen, and Sustain Primary Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic10/7/2020
• LetterACP Comments on Proposed 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Rule 10/2/2020
• LetterCoalition Letter on ACO Changes in 2021 Proposed Physician Fee Schedule/Quality Payment Program Proposed Rule 9/23/2020
• LetterACP Comments to CMS/Acumen on MIPS Cost Measures Under Development 9/17/2020
• StatementInternists Urge Congress to Support Planned Increases in Payments for E/M Services 9/11/2020
• LetterACP Cover Letter and Document to Members of Congress in Support of the 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule 9/11/2020
• SummaryACP Summary of 2021 Proposed Physician Fee Schedule & Quality Payment Program 9/10/2020

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To access everything ACP has said related to Medicare reform issues search all policy statements, copies of testimony, and letters to government and non-government officials.

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