Time to register for the 2014 group practice reporting option (GPRO)
This blog recently discussed how to avoid a Medicare payment adjustment under the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) in 2016. We'll focus on one of those methods, meeting the satisfactory reporting requirement for the group practice reporting option (GPRO), registration for which is now available under the 2014 PQRS.
The program defines a “group practice” as a physician organization with its own single tax identification number (TIN) and two or more eligible professionals (EPs) who have individual national provider identifiers and have reassigned their billing rights to the TIN. When your group is ready, you can register through the Physician Value-Physician Quality Reporting System (PV-PQRS) at http://portal.cms.gov. To choose your group's reporting mechanism, you will need a valid user identification and password for authorized access to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS). The registration system for the 2014 PQRS program will be open until Sept. 30.
GPRO participants who satisfactorily report data on PQRS measures during the 2014 reporting period (Jan. 1-Dec. 31) are eligible for a 0.5 percent incentive and will avoid the 2 percent pay cut in 2016. This is the last year that EPs can earn an incentive payment under PQRS.
The report those measures, GPRO participants can choose one of three mechanisms:
• Qualified PQRS registry
• Directly from an electronic health record (EHR) using certified EHR technology (CEHRT)
• CEHRT via a data submission vendor
If your group has 25 or more EPs, you can also participate in GPRO via Web Interface. If the group practice has 25 or more EPs, then the group can elect to supplement its PQRS reporting mechanism with the Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey. However, if the group practice has 100 or more EPs and has selected the Web Interface reporting mechanism for 2014, then the group is required to report the CAHPS survey.
Additional information about the 2014 GPRO registration and 2014 PQRS GPRO requirements is available on the CMS web site. For more information on how to register in the PV-PQRS Registration system, please visit the Self Nomination/Registration page. Finally, for questions about how to register, please contact the Quality Net Help Desk at 866-288-8912 (TTY: 1-877-715-6222), or by email: qnetsupport@hcqis.org.
– Kent Moore, Senior Strategist for Physician Payment for the American Academy of Family Physicians
Posted on May 13, 2014 by David Twiddy