A study, published in Health Affairs, examined physician performance and participation in Medicare's value-based payment modifier program.
Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at St. Louis-based Washington University School of Medicine, and colleagues examined data from the first year of Medicare's Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier program.
Approximately 1,010 practices had a 100 or more professionals that were potentially eligible for the Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier program in 2015. Researchers examined a total of 899 practices — after 111 practices were excluded.
Here's what they found:
1. Exactly 636 or 70.7 percent of practices successfully registered and met minimum reporting requirements.
2. The remaining 263 or 29.3 percent of practices failed to report anything and received an automatic 1 percent reporting-based penalty.
3. Practices that registered and reported information had around 220,000 eligible professionals and more than 4.6 million beneficiaries.
4. Practices that failed to report had 65,000 eligible professionals and 560,000-plus beneficiaries.
5. Practices that elected quality tiering or those that used EHRs had better performance when it came to quality and cost.
6. Practices with a primary care focus were of higher quality but of similar cost when compared to others.
Researchers concluded, "These findings translated into difference in the receipt of penalties and bonuses and may have implications for performance patterns under the Merit-based Incentive Payment System."