Neurosurgery Requests Congressional Oversight of Medicare Quality Programs

While the AANS and the CNS are firmly behind efforts to improve the quality of care delivered to our patients, Medicare’s Quality Payment Program is an abject failure. The flawed MIPS perpetuates a complicated, one-size-fits-all approach, with meaningless quality measures that do nothing to improve quality or increase the value of care. Furthermore, few if any APMs are available for specialty physicians — including neurosurgeons — further thwarting efforts to achieve the program’s goals.

The neurosurgical societies are calling on policymakers to minimize the complexity, streamline and reduce the reporting burdens of the MIPS and APM programs. To this end, the AANS and the CNS joined the Alliance of Specialty Medicine in urging the Senate Finance Committee and the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means 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 of 2015.

Click here to read the Alliance of Specialty Medicine letter.