Last year, ophthalmologists generated savings surpassing $24 million in penalty avoidances through submitting quality information to CMS' Physician Quality Reporting System through the American Academy of Ophthalmology's IRIS Registry.
Here are four things to know:
1. AAO launched the registry nearly three years ago.
2. The registry gives ophthalmologists clinical benchmarks and practice patterns on more than 28 million patients and 100 million patient visits throughout the United States.
3. Ophthalmologists submitted data on patients with the most common eye diseases to the IRIS Registry from Jan. 1, 2013, through June 30, 2016. The data showed the most common eye diseases include:
• Open-angle glaucoma: 3.3 million patients
• Cataracts: 2.4 million patients
• Age-related macular degeneration: 2.3 million patients
• Diabetic retinopathy: 1.3 million patients
4. The world's largest association of eye physicians and surgeons, the AO is comprised of 32,000 physicians.
"The power of the IRIS Registry continues to astound the eye care community," said William L. Rich, III, MD, president of the AO. "There is no other resource in the world that can provide ophthalmologists and public health decision-makers with a real-time, real-world picture about the value, efficacy and potential to improve medical and surgical eye care. It is also fully responsive to physicians' Medicare physician quality reporting needs."