Did your practice face an unusual extreme hardship this year, such as financial or staffing difficulties related to COVID-19?
Do you practice in a rural area with poor internet connectivity?
If so, you could qualify for an exception to the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) reporting requirements for the 2020 performance year.
The application deadline has been extended to Feb. 1, 2021. The previous deadline was Dec. 31, 2020.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Payment Program (QPP) provides exceptions for circumstances out of your control that make it difficult for you to meet MIPS program requirements.
Specifically, you could be eligible for an Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Exception if your practice was affected by COVID-19. Qualifying for this exception results in a reweighting of any or all MIPS performance categories to 0% for your reporting. Find out more about CMS’ COVID-19 response on the QPP website.
You also might qualify for the Promoting Interoperability Hardship Exception if your practice is unable to acquire and use electronic health record (EHR) technology. If you are approved for the exception, CMS will reweight the Promoting Interoperability performance category from 25% to 0% for your reporting; the 25% weighting of this category will be reallocated to the Quality performance category.
MIPS-eligible physicians, groups, and virtual groups can apply for either exception. You will be notified by email if your request is approved or denied. An approved exception will be reflected in your eligibility profile on the QPP Participation Status Tool (but may not appear in the tool until the submission window is open in 2021).
Download the 2020 Exceptions FAQs to learn more.
If you have questions, contact the TMA Knowledge Center by email or at (800) 880-7955, or contact the Quality Payment Program at QPP@cms.hhs.gov or (866) 288-8292.
Last Updated On
December 02, 2020