2016 PQRS Negative Payment Adjustment
Posted by Niurka Moreno on February 3rd, 2016
Payment cut is the last thing that Providers and Healthcare Facilities would ever want to face, considering the present scenario of the US healthcare domain. With new medical reforms revolutionizing the existing medical billing and collections, sending out error-free claims has become a challenge for Providers these days. As a result, their reimbursements get affected badly. On top, if there is a payment cut to their already lower remuneration, then the situation of Providers would worsen further. As feared, the 2016 PQRS negative payment adjustment will go live next year. Facing a 2% payment adjustment in addition to training staff, handling medical claims processing services, updating software & technology, and carrying out the administrative operations can be a herculean task for Providers. Let us discuss how they can overcome these hurdles:
What is PQRS?
To make sure that group practices as well as individual eligible professionals provide value services to their patients and report quality measures, the CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) had introduced the PQRS (Physician Quality Reporting System) program. As per the update to this system, EPs and physician group practices will be subject to a 2% payment cut if they fail to report quality measures.
2016 PQRS Payment Adjustment:
The 2016 PQRS payment cut will be applicable to those EPs and physician group practices who did not meet the quality reporting criterions adopted in the 2014 PQRS initiative. It means that they will face a 2% payment cut or receive only 98% of the allowed Medicare PFS amounts for covered medical services in the year 2016. Having said that, EPs and physician group practices had time last year (2015) to report quality measures and save themselves from facing the 2017 PQRS negative adjustment. Providers could use an extra hand through medical claims processing companies to have a healthy cash flow by keeping their medical billing and collections unaffected.
Overcome the Payment Cut: The best way to stay away from the 2% payment cut is to render quality patient care services. However, Providers are facing a hard time implementing new changes like the ICD-10 implementation to their practices and training their staff on upgraded software & technology. Amidst all these challenges, they may miss to focus on patient care and medical claims processing. Outsourcing medical billing and collections would be the prudent choice for Providers to keep their practices running smooth. While medical billing companies take care of the physician billing services, Providers can concentrate more on rendering quality patient care services and qualify themselves for the PQRS incentive of 0.5%.
About MGSI:
MGSI, a Florida-based medical claims processing company is a one-stop-solution to all the problems that Providers face. It provides exceptional medical billing and collection services to its clients across the US. With 21 years of experience in the healthcare domain, this national company will take care of all its clients’ needs while they focus on providing quality patient care services. To learn more details, log on to www.mgsionline.com.
