MACRA

"We understand new rules require adjustment and preparation," said Andy Slavitt, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services acting administrator.

The physician practice association offered recommendations for the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System and Alternative Payment Models proposed by MACRA – including a reduction of reporting requirements across MIPS.

$20 million will be given each year, for the next five years, to provide training and education for Medicare clinicians.

The American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association call on ONC to rethink how it measures interoperability. Rather than simply gauging data exchange, they contend, ONC should focus on better care coordination.

Many physicians have waited with bated breath for the end of meaningful use, looking forward to a new era of less burdensome compliance requirements and more realistic reporting guidelines. This may not be what they had in mind.

On Twitter, former National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD, called it the "most substantive change to how healthcare is paid for in a couple of decades.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a long-awaited proposed rule for the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, or MACRA, on Wednesday, ushering in some big changes for the ways physicians are assessed for quality of care and use of information technology.    

Starting in 2019, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will change how they pay physicians in a profound way. Unfortunately, the details are complicated and confusing, and many of the particulars have yet to be worked out, which has led many healthcare leaders to glaze over the details and focus on more immediate concerns.

One week after Andy Slavitt said meaningful use would be replaced soon, the acting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator and national coordinator Karen DeSalvo made it clear that the changes would take time and that providers must still follow the current program.