CoxHealth is ready to reap the rewards of participation in Medicare’s Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, thanks to a boost from GE Healthcare.
The three-hospital system, which includes more than 50 physician clinics and more than 400 physicians in Missouri and Arkansas, is using GE’s Medical Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC) quality data system to streamline reporting for the system’s Centricity EMR and Practice Management solutions. MQIC was selected by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services as a reporting registry for the 2008 PQRI program.
Using the MQIC program will enable CoxHealth to participate in pay-for-performance programs and qualify for financial incentives through the PQRI program. The voluntary PQRI program offers reimbursements of up to 1.5 percent of allowed charges to physicians who successfully report on a specified set of quality measures for services provided to patients under the Medicare Physician fee Schedule. That reimbursement cap will increase to 2 percent in the coming year.
GE’s MQIC registry function captures PQRI measurement data automatically when physicians document encounters for qualified patients in GE’s Centricity EMR. The program can also automatically forward that data to CMS without additional administrative work.
“GE’s MQIC service has provided our organization with a viable avenue for participation in the PQRI program,” said Sharon Duvall, CoxHealth’s performance improvement facilitator, in a press release. “We had declined to use the claims-based method for data submission, due to the administrative complexity of this option and the significant time investment. “Until GE’s MQIC registry certification, we just didn’t see the advantage of the PQRI program in terms of return on investment.”
“The government’s new HITECH Act for Healthcare has made it clear that quality outcomes measurement is increasingly important, and we believe we are prepared to take advantage of this focus, through our use of MQIC and Centricity EMR,” she added.
CoxHealth, based in Springfield, Mo., provides care to 22 counties in southwest Missouri and northern Arkansas. GE Healthcare is based in the UK, with an American headquarters in Barrington, Ill.
“For over 40 years, we have demonstrated our commitment to enabling business performance while helping our customers optimize clinical care,” said James M. Corrigan, vice president and general manager of GE healthcare IT. “The significant progress CoxHealth has made towards realizing a new revenue stream through participation in this CMS pay-for-performance program – which is ultimately aimed at improving patient care – was enabled by this commitment.”