I thought you did a wonderful job in summarizing how reimbursement incentives through
Medicare originated and the transition to a merit-based program. I find it quite interesting that
providers need “incentives” to effectively use electronic health records to provide high quality
patient care. Overall, this is great way to push health information technology forward by
promoting accurate data collection and reducing medical errors. Since the program’s launch in
2015, it is interesting to note both providers performance and participation in MIPS. An article
by Maddox et al. looked at both characteristics within the first year of the program. They
sampled 899 practices that were eligible for the program and of these, 29.3% or 263 failed to
report data and received a penalty (Maddox et al., 2017). An interestingly, practices that had a
focus on primary health had better numbers than other practices (Maddox et al., 2017). The
HITECH Act gave financial incentives to health care providers that adopt the meaningful use of
electronic health record technology (Madison, 2018). The MIPS encompasses the meaningful use
framework, hopefully more providers and practices will embrace these incentive programs for
not only reimbursement reasons, but for improving the overall quality care of patients.
Sometimes I feel providers loose sight of putting the patient first and only see what benefits they
can get. As nurses, we are the front-line defense in advocating for our patients and delivering the
best care we can. Galatians 6:10 (New International Version) says,
“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people,
especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” How can
we as nurses reinforce to our providers putting the patient first?
God bless!
Matt
References
Holy Bible, New International Version. (2011). Biblica, Inc.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?
search=galatians+6%3A10&version=NIV
Joynt Maddox, K. E., Epstein, A. M., Samson, L. W., & Chen, L. M. (2017).
Performance and participation of physicians in year one of medicare's value-
based payment modifier program. Health Affairs (Project Hope), 36(12), 2175-
2184. https://doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0894
Madison, M. (2018). The health information technology for education and clinical
health act, meaningful use, and medicare access and chip reauthrozation act of
2015. In R. Nelson & N. Staggers (Eds.), Health informatics: An interprofessional
approach (2nd ed., pp. 455- 473) Elsevier
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