The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released a report titled, “Early Implementation Review: CMS’s Management of the Quality Payment Program.”
Although the OIG determined that CMS has made significant progress towards implementing the Quality Payment Program (QPP), CMS still hasn’t built critical IT infrastructure that will be needed for physicians to submit, analyze, and understand data submitted to the QPP authorized under MACRA. In particular, the OIG identified two vulnerabilities that are critical for CMS to address in 2017, because of their potential impact on the program’s success:
- Providing sufficient guidance and technical assistance to ensure that clinicians are ready to participate in the QPP, and
- Developing IT systems to support data reporting, scoring, and payment adjustment.
The OIG concluded that “if the complex systems underlying the [Quality Payment Program] are not operational on schedule, the program will struggle to meet its goal of improving value and quality.”
Read the full report.