We physicians are part of so many powerful stories: Stories of injuries healed, cancers overcome and chronic conditions brought under control. But there’s another story happening behind the scenes of clinical care that others need to hear.
Competing regulations are weighing us down and putting up roadblocks to providing high-quality care for the patients who depend on us. Equipped with a recent AMA study on the drivers of physician satisfaction, we tell a compelling story every day in the nation’s capital of how burdensome regulations present the most difficult hurdles to high-quality care.
During the AMA’s State Legislative Strategy Conference earlier this month in Tucson, Ariz., attendees heard an update on ways we are winning regulatory relief for physicians. Here are a few highlights:
Electronic health record (EHR) meaningful use. Physicians have identified this regulation as one of the greatest challenges to their practices, thanks to its all-or-nothing approach, the numerous requirements and the technology’s prohibitive usability issues.
We’ve secured important relief in recent months, including a yearlong extension of Stage 2 that provides more time for physicians and EHR vendors to adequately prepare for Stage 3 and a renewed legal exemption that allows physicians to accept donated EHR systems without violating anti-kickback regulations.
We continue to press the government to improve EHR usability, make the meaningful use requirements more flexible and reduce the number of requirements physicians must meet.
Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS). As this program also moves into the penalty phase, we have convinced the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to lower the threshold for meeting reporting requirements from 80 percent to 50 percent of applicable patients. A new clinical data registry reporting option for which we advocated now is available, in addition to the options we secured last year that allow physicians to report via administrative claims or a single measure or measure group.
We’re also calling for better alignment of the meaningful use quality measures with those in the PQRS, timely access to feedback reports and increased availability of specialty-specific measures.
Value-based payment modifier. While we continue to urge Congress to repeal this additional method of adjusting physician payments, we also achieved several important changes. Practices no longer will be subject to the 2 percent penalty when their entire group does not fulfill the PQRS reporting requirements if at least 50 percent of the group’s physicians and other eligible professionals successfully participate. Physicians also now can appeal quality resource use reports.
ICD-10 implementation. One of the most burdensome regulations scheduled this year is implementation of the ICD-10 code set. We continue to call on Congress to stop the code set from taking effect. In the meantime, we also are working to mitigate implementation issues. CMS has announced a limited testing week in March, thanks to our efforts, but we continue to press for robust, end-to-end testing to determine where the real disruptions will lie.
While you are busy fulfilling your calling to serve the nation’s patients, the AMA is hard at work for you, clearing the regulatory barriers that stand in the way of giving your patients the highest quality care.
