2011 Physician Quality Reporting System & Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program

2011 Physician Quality Reporting System & Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program

National Provider Call and Webinar with Question & Answer Session

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Provider Communications Group will host a national provider conference call on the 2011 Physician Quality Reporting System and Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program.  This toll-free call will take place from 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m., EST, on Tuesday, January 18, 2011.

The Physician Quality Reporting System is a voluntary quality reporting program that provides an incentive payment to identified individual eligible professionals (EPs), and beginning with the 2010 Physician Quality Reporting System, group practices who satisfactorily report data on quality measures for covered Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) services furnished to Medicare Part B Fee-For-Service (FFS) beneficiaries. The Physician Quality Reporting System was first implemented in 2007 as a result of section 101 of the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 (TRHCA), and further expanded as a result of the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007 (MMSEA), and the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA).

The eRx Incentive Program is an incentive program for eligible professionals initially implemented in 2009 as a result of section 132(b) of the MIPPA.  The eRx Incentive Program promotes the adoption and use of eRx systems by individual eligible professionals and beginning with the 2010 eRx Incentive Program, group practices.
Following the formal presentation that will cover the following:

•       Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program Payment Adjustment;
•       Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) Incentive Program Differences; and
•       Electronic Health Record (EHR) Submission.
The lines will be opened to allow participants to ask questions of CMS Physician Quality Reporting System and eRx subject matter experts.

A PowerPoint slide presentation will be posted to the Physician Quality Reporting System webpage at, http://www.cms.gov/PQRI/04_CMSSponsoredCalls.asp on the CMS website for you to download prior to the call so that you can follow along with the presenter.

Educational products are available on the Physician Quality Reporting System dedicated web page located at, http://www.cms.hhs.gov/PQRI , on the CMS website, in the Educational Resources section, as well as educational products are available on the eRx Incentive Program dedicated web page located athttp://www.cms.hhs.gov/ERxIncentive on the CMS website. Feel free to download the resources prior to the call so that you may ask questions of the CMS presenters.

Conference call details:

Date:  January 18, 2011

Conference Title:  Physician Quality Reporting System & Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program National Provider Call

Time:   1:30 p.m. EST

In order to receive the call-in information, you must register for the call. It is important to note that if you are planning to sit in with a group, only one person needs to register to receive the call-in data.  This registration is solely to reserve a phone line, NOT to allow participation.  Registration will close at 1:30 p.m. EST on January 17, 2011, or when available space has been filled.  No exceptions will be made, so please be sure to register prior to this time.

1.      To register for the call participants need to go to:
http://www.eventsvc.com/palmettogba/011811

2.      Fill in all required data.

3.      Verify that your time zone is displayed correctly in the drop down box.

4.      Click “Register”.

5.      You will be taken to the “Thank you for registering” page and will receive a confirmation email shortly thereafter.   Note: Please print and save this page, in the event that your server blocks the confirmation emails.  If you do not receive the confirmation email, please check your spam/junk mail filter as it may have been directed there.

6.    CMS will be adding a webinar as part of this national conference call. This feature will allow participants who are on the Internet the ability to follow the presentation online as it is given. This will not have any effect on those participants who are only dialing in to the audio portion of the call.

Please note participants who are not signed into the webinar should download the presentation from the CMS website. CMS would like to thank those of you who will participate in this feature.

To access Adobe Connect Pro Webinar: please use the following URL:  https://webinar.cms.hhs.gov/PQRS – Instructions: Sign in as a “Guest” when prompted – please enter your first and last name.
Please dial in for the call first and then go to Adobe Connect Pro. Thank you.
If assistance for hearing impaired services is needed the request must be sent to medicare.ttt@palmettogba.com no later than 3 business day before the event.

For those of who will be unable to attend, a transcript and MP3 file of the call will be available at least one week after the call at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/pqri on the CMS website.
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First EHR Incentive Payments Issued
Registration opened on January 3rd for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs and Medicaid payments have already been issued by two states!

On Wednesday, January 5, 2011 the first payments under the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program were issued by Oklahoma and Kentucky.  Kentucky processed payment to the University of Kentucky ‘s teaching hospital, University of Kentucky Healthcare.  The first payment, $2.86 million, was one- third of the hospital’s overall expected amount for participating in the program.  Oklahoma issued payments to two physicians at the Gastorf Family Clinic of Durant, OK for $21,250 each, for having adopted certified EHRs. These incentive payments for the adoption of certified EHR technology are federally-funded under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

For additional information on the this action by Oklahoma and Kentucky please visit their websites:   http://www.okhca.org/EHR-incentive and  http://chfs.ky.gov/dms/EHR.htm

For more information on the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentive Programs, please visit CMS‘ EHR website at http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/

Jon Langmead
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
San Francisco Regional Office

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3 Comments

  • Here’s something I find entertaining about the “quality” reporting mandate that was quietly written into HIPAA about the time President Clinton amended the 1966 Freedom of Information Act – making doctors’ records no longer proprietary business information. The 1996 HIPAA Rule is modular, and around every corner, we’ve learned there is an exploding surprise that was slipped into a thick bill long ago. The bolus technique of passing difficult legislation is not unlike the way the 2000 page healthcare reform bill was handled. It gets crap through the system too quick to be read, understood and debated by principals in healthcare who aren’t paying attention anyway. It’s a rule-making policy that simply favors stakeholders rather than doctors and patients. Depending on the campaign contributions, silliness can catch fire like a Madoff investment.

    I don’t know about physicians, but dentists have never been warned about the quality control part of compliance. Now that it’s an integral part of healthcare reform’s imaginary funding, it’s a sure bet that no ADA official is willing to discuss the egregious blunder even anonymously.

    Soon enough, ADA members will learn about the clandestine quality control efforts of the ADA Department of Informatics – the brainchild of former ADA Sr. Vice President Dr. John Luther, who I hear is no longer part of the organization. Although I’m a persistent, nosey outsider peeking into a secretive not-for-profit organization (?), from what I can tell, the ADA’s interest in quality control began about 6 years ago following a visit to the ADA Headquarters by Newt Gingrich – which evidently favored the ADA Department of Dental Informatics with federal funding to replace dependence on finicky members’ dues. Had ADA members who were busy treating dental patients actually known the directions the ADA took the ADA’s mission statement for easy money, Dr. Luther’s career with the organization would have been even shorter.

    Knowing that anonymous ADA leaders’ blunders no longer stay hidden forever, don’t you find the shyness of today’s dental leaders amusing? Don’t you just know the trusting early-adopters of interoperable eDRs will be pissed off when they discover that long ago, the ADA could have warned them about ambitious stakeholders’ plans for the profession?

    Who’s going to break the sweet news to dues-paying members before CMS, insurers, and quality control consultants (today’s dental insurance consultants), are granted a back door to HIPAA-compliant dentists’ interoperable computers allowing access for real-time quality control authorities, as well as fraud, HIPAA, FTC and other inspectors working on commission? It’s a dark tale.

    D. Kellus Pruitt DDS

  • You’re not kidding! But you know what? I bet if nobody other than Wikileaks discusses the stupid things government hides, nobody will learn a thing and the problems with eHRs will never be solved.

    D. Kellus Pruitt

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