The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has doled out more than $36 million in bonus payments to many of the approximately 56,700 health professionals who satisfactorily reported quality information to Medicare under the 2007 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI).
"Creating a value-based purchasing system is a critical way to improve our healthcare systems. By collecting quality data, healthcare providers can use the information to improve the quality care of beneficiaries," said Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt.
The PQRI is a voluntary program. In accordance with a law passed by Congress late in 2006, physicians and other eligible professionals can receive bonus payments of 1.5 percent of their total allowed Medicare charges, subject to a cap, by satisfactorily submitting quality information for services they furnished between July and December of 2007.
More than 109,000 professionals participated in the 2007 program. Of those, more than 56,700 physicians and other eligible professionals met statutory requirements for satisfactory reporting and are receiving incentive payments.
Physicians, group practices and other PQRI-eligible professionals should receive their payments by August 2008, according to CMS. The average incentive amount is more than $600 for individual professionals and more than $4,700 for physician group practices, with the largest payment to a physician group practice totaling more than $205,700.
Of all 50 states and territories, including Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam, participating in the program, health professionals in Florida and Illinois are receiving the highest incentive payments, totaling more than $3 million in Florida and more than $2 million in Illinois.
CMS officials say the 2008 PQRI program includes enhancements in terms of the scope of measures that could be reported, the opportunity to receive incentive payments for the entire year, the ability to report measures within a group for a specified number of patients and the use of registries to report quality measures.
All 2007 PQRI participants can begin accessing confidential feedback reports that aggregate the data they submitted and shows how they compared with other participants, officials said.
The 2008 PQRI program has grown to include 119 quality measures, which were published in the Physician Fee Schedule for 2008. Nearly all are clinical performance measures, such as the percentage of patients who received necessary mammograms and cancer screenings. There are also two structural measures that focus on the use of electronic health records and electronic prescribing technology.
"These payments to physicians for participating in the PQRI are a first step toward improving how Medicare pays for health care services," said CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems. "We all can agree that the current payment system needs to be reformed to pay for high quality care rather than continuing to pay for the volume of services. The PQRI has proven to be a successful step towards establishing a value-based purchasing program for physicians."
The PQRI is part of the president's value-driven healthcare agenda, which seeks to address current problems in the healthcare sector regarding preventable errors, uneven quality of care and rising healthcare costs.
Has your practice participated in the PQRI program? Send your comments to Associate Editor Chelsey Ledue at chelsey.ledue@medtechpublishing.com.