November 24, 2021

CMS to Hold Physicians Harmless from 2023 MIPS Penalties

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that it will again this year be granting automatic exceptions from reporting requirements for clinicians participating in Medicare quality reporting programs due to the ongoing disruptions the COVID-19 public health emergency is having on physician practices.

The Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances (EUC) Hardship Exception policy will be automatically applied to all MIPS-eligible clinicians who do not submit any MIPS data for the 2021 performance period (2023 payment year). Physicians and group practices that haven't submitted any MIPS data do not need to take any additional action to qualify for the automatic exception. CMS will automatically identify and reweight all four MIPS performance categories to 0% and apply a neutral payment adjustment for the 2023 MIPS payment year.

Important: If a physician or practice has submitted quality data codes on their 2021 Medicare claims, they will still need to file a 2021 MIPS hardship exception to avoid a 2023 payment adjustment and be exempt from the 2021 MIPS program. Exception applications can be submitted by signing in to qpp.cms.gov and clicking Exception Applications on the left-hand navigation.

For more detailed information on the automatic EUC policy and CMS announcement, click here.