MACRA and CMS- #HITsm Chat Topics

We’re excited to share the topic and questions for this week’s #HITsm chat happening Friday, 1/6 at Noon ET (9 AM PT). This week’s chat will be hosted by Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) and the @CMSGov team (@AislingMcDL, @JessPKahn, @AndreyOstrovsky, @N_Brennan, @LisaBari, and @ThomasNOV) on the topic of “MACRA and CMS“. Should be a lively discussion with Andy Slavitt and the CMS team. Plus, a great time for the healthcare IT community to be able to engage with CMS.

Here’s the full list of questions that will serve as the framework for the #HITsm chat on MACRA and CMS:

T1: How are you planning to participate in MACRA (MIPS/APMs)? Do you have a final plan or are you still figuring it out?

T2: What do you think MACRA’s impact will be on care quality?

T3: MACRA is an opportunity for new payment models, what new models should be incorporated into MACRA?

T4: What new initiatives should be taken on by CMS and what should be left in place and not changed by the new administration?

T5: What’s an effective interaction between the public and CMS? What’s been your experience?

Bonus: What’s your 2017 healthcare IT resolutions?

Here’s a look at the upcoming #HITsm chat schedule:

1/13 – New Years Goals for Healthcare IT
Hosted by John Lynn (@techguy) from Healthcare Scene

1/20 – Identifying, Engaging, and Learning from Health IT Influencers, Leaders & Organizations
Hosted by Juliana Ruiz from Bryte Box Consulting (@BryteBox)

1/27 – Key Components of Health IT Strategy and Disaster Recovery
Hosted by Bill Esslinger (@billesslinger) from @FogoDataCenters

We look forward to learning from the #HITsm community! As always let us know if you have ideas for how to make #HITsm better.

If you’re searching for the latest #HITsm chat, you can always find the latest #HITsm chat and schedule of chats here.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

3 Comments

  • Better questions:
    1. Has CPIA ever been proven to improve outcomes/care if not why add it?
    2. Has MU ever been proven to improve care, cost, usability, efficiency, safety or security (OMG no). Answer is NO. Why continue with ACI?
    3. Has PQRS been a success? Has it ever been shown to do anything to improve care/outcomes, or only burden MDs with reporting complexity? Why continue in MACRA?
    4. AAPMs, why ask MDs to take on MORE risk. We already take risks of nonpayment with our payment structure of providing care and hoping for payment. What percentage of claims are NOT paid by CMS when they should have been?
    5. Do they honestly feel that this hyper-regulatory legislation will improve care/outcomes/costs/reduce burden? Really?
    6. Have penalties EVER worked for ANY government program? No.

    They are just going to stick to script, of “we listened”, “we made it markedly less burdensome”, “we gave a 1 year reprieve called Pick your Pace”, “we got all hospitals and many MDs on EHRs, so we are successful”, “value based care is the future”, “interop is a work in progress”. Empty, puffery language, Blah blah blah.

    New sheriffs are coming to town, and CMS and ONC still are wondering why. Its because they did NOT listen, they only hear what they want to hear. ONC and CMS have lost the hearts and minds of physicians in a little over 8 years. They ignored that. They constantly backslapped each other even though the program statistics progressively worsened. As Stage 2 was failing, they kept pressing. They could have been a VERY loud voice to Congress to stop this. They did not listen to front line MDs, they implemented complicated, massive regulatory activity and constant financial penalties and star rating punitive action that they KNOW does not work and lead to serious level of burnout among MDs and healthcare front line team members. They were arrogant, they did not “know” better, and the constantly relied on “sounds good” regulatory activity. They ignored thousands of comments on their proposed rules and pushed ahead when they should have been listening and telling Congress to back off. They needed to get out of DC and not surround themselves with sycophant MDs that barely practice or do not practice medicine at all.

    Welcome to the blowback CMS/ONC of a Democratic administration. You used to have many more Dems than Republicans in your house. In just 8 years, you drove out a million providers, plus those we employ…so more like many millions. Get in back in touch with real people and real doctors.

    Its OK, these folks will be back in the private sector soon, probably doing exactly the same as prior US gov admin CMS and HHS leaders, working for lobbyists or other conflict of interest employment schemes because they have an understanding and connections to get favorable regulatory activity. You just have to look back at Mostashari, Sebelius,Tavenner, etc. to see how that works.

    So yes, are we angry, you bet. Its their legacy now. Backslap away.

  • So what did we learn?

    T1: How are you planning to participate in MACRA (MIPS/APMs)? Do you have a final plan or are you still figuring it out?

    Obviously everyone is still figuring it out. Its a huge complicated mess.

    T2: What do you think MACRA’s impact will be on care quality?

    Zero, if not worsen as it drives MDs out of practice. Im sorry did PQRS or MU help? Oh yeah, nope. 10 years of PQRS by the way. Any studies showing effectiveness? Nope

    T3: MACRA is an opportunity for new payment models, what new models should be incorporated into MACRA?

    More new untested, unproven models are the last thing we need. Maybe some more buzzword ones like ACO, or Bundled care? Ask Dartmouth, the original ACO gangster how that went for them…oh yeah they shuttered it this past year.

    T4: What new initiatives should be taken on by CMS and what should be left in place and not changed by the new administration?

    The new administration should repeal and NOT replace MACRA. Its ok to test new ideas, but NEVER penalize non-participants in reporting schemes that have NEVER been shown to work.

    T5: What’s an effective interaction between the public and CMS? What’s been your experience?

    Twitter! You can say you “Listen” without actually listening!! You can convince media/bloggers that you are the king of all listeners because you say you listen on Twitter! So cool! *

    * CMS does not listen and only says it for promotional purposes. All programs will continue unabated.

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