CMS IDs 'A Few Errors' in MIPS Scoring, Extends Deadline

Review period extended two weeks. CMS says discovering the 2017 scoring errors indicates its targeted review process 'worked exactly as intended.'

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says it is extending by two weeks the review period for the 2019 Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) adjustment calculation after it identified and fixed "a few errors in the scoring logic" used in the 2017 assessments.

As a result, CMS moved the 2019 payment adjustment from September 30 to October 15 at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

"The requests that we received through targeted review caused us to take a closer look at a few prevailing concerns," CMS said in a post on its website.

CMS said the concerns include "the application of the 2017 Advancing Care Information (ACI) and Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances hardship exceptions, the awarding of Improvement Activity credit for successful participation in the Improvement Activities (IA) Burden Reduction Study, and the addition of the All-Cause Readmission (ACR) measure to the MIPS final score."

"Based on these requests, we reviewed the concerns, identified a few errors in the scoring logic, and implemented solutions," CMS said.

Errors remedied, CMS says it saw "a very high 91% participation rate" for the first year of MIPS in 2017, which provides individual clinicians, and physician groups participating in Alternative Payment Models access to feedback on their final 2017 MIPS score, and 2019 MIPS payment adjustment.

CMS said identifying and fixing the errors also indicated that its targeted review process "worked exactly as intended."

"The incoming requests quickly alerted us to these issues and allowed us to take immediate action," CMS said. "Addressing and correcting for the above elements resulted in changes to the 2017 MIPS final score and associated 2019 MIPS payment adjustment for the clinicians who were impacted by the identified issues."