capitol hill report: GOOD NEWS FOR MIPS PARTICIPANTS
March 8, 2021
CMS Adjusts MIPS Penalties Due to COVID-19 Health Emergency
On February 25, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it will hold MIPS eligible clinicians harmless from up to nine percent in penalties due to the impact of the COVID-19 public health emergency on performance in 2020. The Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Hardship Exception policy will be automatically applied to all MIPS eligible clinicians who do not submit any MIPS data for the 2020 performance period and avoid a 2022 payment penalty. CMS is also reopening the hardship exception application with a deadline of March 31, 2021. Groups and eligible clinicians who submit data in at least two MIPS categories will override the hardship exception and be eligible to earn a bonus from the exceptional performance bonus pool or potentially be subject to a penalty.
Academy Queries SSA on Disability Processes
On February 23, the AAN submitted a letter to the Social Security Administration (SSA) related to the disability determination process for both neurologist medical experts and for neurology patients. The letter raised significant issues related to the rate of compensation for medical experts and the burdens of the process to become a medical expert. The letter also noted evidence of significant inequities in the disability determination process that detrimentally impact neurology patients. The goal of the letter is to open a dialogue with the SSA and to ascertain the degree to which legislative action is needed to ensure that neurology patients can access necessary and appropriate benefits.
Participate in Neurology Compensation and Productivity Survey Launching March 8
The Neurology Compensation and Productivity survey is the largest survey dedicated to neurology and its subspecialties. Submit the survey by May 14 to receive FREE access to the full data set.
With the data from the Neurology Compensation and Productivity Survey, you can:
- Find neurologist compensation data by subspecialty, geographic region, and more
- Advocate for yourself to ensure you are getting compensated fairly
- View benchmarking for advanced practice providers
- See how the COVID-19 pandemic affected practices across the country
- Find out average on-call rates and duties
This is a $500 AAN member value—if you complete the survey by May 14, 2021. Participation also includes immediate download of historical 2019 data upon survey submission. The AAN is committed to protecting your anonymity, and we can assure you that collected data is de-identified and reported only in aggregate. Visit AAN.com/Benchmark for more information.