The Medicare Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) unfairly penalizes physicians caring for a patient population with more complex medical needs, according to a study in JAMA Network, Fierce Healthcare reports.
In a cross-sectional study of 80,246 primary care physicians participating in the MIPS program in 2019 who cared for 4.6 million patients, researchers with Weill Cornell Medical College concluded that “MIPS scores were inconsistently related to performance on process and outcome measures, and physicians caring for more medically complex and socially vulnerable patients were more likely to receive low MIPS scores, even when they delivered relatively high-quality care.”
In addition, physicians participating in MIPS pay to play. Researchers citing previous studies note that in 2017, it cost PCPs more than $1.3 billion to comply with MIPS rules. In 2019, physician practices spent more than $12,000 per PCP to participate in the program.
The MIPS program, as currently structured, also has the potential to exacerbate health inequities by transferring resources from physicians caring for less affluent patients to those caring for more affluent patients, the study said. Read more.
