The check may yet be in the mail

I know it's 2009, but Medicare's 2007 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) continues to make news. 

Those of you who have been following this saga may recall that a lot of physicians who thought that they should have received a bonus check for participating in the 2007 version of PQRI never did. It turns out that some of them probably should have, after all.

In a set of new PQRI frequently asked questions posted on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) web site, CMS confirmed that it is re-running the 2007 PQRI feedback reports and incentive payments. According to CMS, it investigated reported issues following delivery of the 2007 PQRI feedback reports and incentive payments and determined that several unanticipated technical issues could be corrected by conducting back-end system analytics and re-running the data. New reports are anticipated to be available in the fall of 2009.

These new reports will be available only for those eligible professionals who have qualified due to the back-end system analysis and re-running the data. That means if you already received an incentive for 2007, the re-run will not apply to you, and you will not receive an additional feedback report. For those that do qualify, feedback reports will be available via the PQRI Reports Delivery System, for which an Individuals Authorized Access to the CMS Computer Services (IACS) user name and password will be required to access.

Interestingly, there will also be a 2007 PQRI re-run for Medicare Advantage participants.  Thus, those Medicare Advantage eligible professionals who previously did not receive a bonus but are bonus eligible following the back-end system analysis and re-run of the 2007 PQRI data will potentially receive the 2007 re-run incentive.

So, if you thought you were owed a 2007 PQRI bonus check, you may still be right.  Unfortunately, you won't find out for sure until this fall.  Think of it as Christmas in October ...  from the U.S. Department of Better Late Than Never.