Andy Slavitt, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) acting administrator, announced CMS’s expectations for MACRA quality reporting in 2017 on September 8th.

The announcement provided four models for physicians to take in 2017 in order to not be penalized by Medicare in 2019:

Participate in an APM. Virtually no orthopaedic surgeon will be eligible to participate in an alternative payment model (APM) in 2017. However, as we indicated in the last TOA e-mail to members (click here), APMs should be available to orthopaedic surgeons in a few years.

Simply report something in 2017. As Mr. Slavitt indicated in his blog, physicians simply have to report any data in 2017 in order to avoid a negative payment adjustment in 2019. Stand by for further guidance in the near future.

Participate for part of the calendar year 2017. “You may choose to submit Quality Payment Program information for a reduced number of days. This means your first performance period could begin later than January 1, 2017 and your practice could still qualify for a small positive payment adjustment.”

Participate for the full calendar year. If your practice is ready to go, then CMS is encouraging you to do so.

Click here to read CMS’s announcement.

Again, look for official guidance from CMS in the near future.

TOA will dedicate part of the May 5-6, 2017 Annual Conference at the Joule in downtown Dallas to MACRA and preparing conferences. Plan to join TOA on Saturday, May 6for the Business of Orthopaedics and a deeper look at MACRA.