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MOC:PQRS incentive: what it is, how to earn it

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Rebecca L. Johnson, MD

September 2013—The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has approved the American Board ofPathology for participation in the MOC:PQRS Additional Incentive Program. This approval allows ABP diplomates who are participating successfully in the PQRS incentive program to earn an additional 0.5 percent incentive payment on the total Medicare part B allowed charges for participating in MOC:PQRS in 2013.

PQRS is the federal voluntary quality reporting program that provides an incentive payment to eligible physicians who satisfactorily report data on specified quality measures. Pathology currently has five quality measures.

Physicians can choose to fulfill the PQRS reporting requirement through Medicare part B claims (most commonly used by pathologists), a qualified electronic health record, or a qualified registry, such as that used by MOCMatters described here. For 2013 and 2014, the PQRS incentive payment is 0.5 percent of a physician’s total Medicare part B allowed charges. Physicians who do not participate in PQRS in 2013 will incur a 1.5 percent penalty in 2015. In 2013, if two members of a group (physicians with the same tax ID number) are reporting quality measures using a registry, the entire group can receive the incentive payment based on its total Medicare part B allowed charges. (See www.cms.gov or the CAP PQRS Resource Center at www.cap.org for more information.)

MOC:PQRS offers eligible physicians who have satisfactorily submitted data under PQRS the opportunity to earn an additional incentive payment of 0.5 percent for participating in the CMS-qualified American Board of Pathology MOC program “more frequently” than is required to maintain board certification. For diplomates with time-limited certificates, “more frequently” has been defined as any one of the following:

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