Neurosurgery Urges CMS to Improve Quality Payment Program

As part of the effort to improve Medicare’s Quality Payment Program (QPP), the AANS and the CNS joined more than 40 national medical organizations in a letter to acting CMS administrator, Elizabeth Richter, urging the agency to make significant improvements in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Value Pathway (MVP) program. The MVP program aims to establish a condition-focused quality reporting option.

In a separate but related effort, the neurosurgical societies joined the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in asking CMS to halt the development of a Degenerative Spine Disease MVP. While organized neurosurgery does not necessarily oppose the establishment of MVPs, the AANS and the CNS are concerned about the agency’s methodology for measuring quality and costs related to this program.

Finally, recognizing the many shortcomings of Medicare’s quality and value-based payment programs, the AANS and the CNS joined the Alliance of Specialty Medicine in urging key House and Senate Committees to convene oversight hearings to examine the implementation of physician-focused value-based care initiatives authorized under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).

Click here to read the coalition letter, here to read neurosurgery’s letter regarding a spine MVP and here for the letter to Congress urging hearings on MACRA’s quality programs.