[VIDEO] What radiology practices need to know about PQRS, explained by Michael Bohl at RBMA 2016.
With some exceptions, if you didn’t reach nine PQRS measures in 2015, you will see a 2% reduction in your Medicare payments in 2017, Michael Bohl, CEO at Radiology Group PC, SC, told Diagnostic Imaging at RBMA 2016.
PQRS, the physician quality reporting system, is a CMS mandate that requires physicians report specific quality measures. Historically, physicians were responsible for reporting three measures, but in 2015, practices had to start submitting nine measures per physician, Bohl said.
PQRS has specific measures and then also includes quality registries that CMS has approved as alternatives to the basic PQRS measures, he said.
In order to avoid a cut in Medicare payments, physicians and practices need to decide which avenue they need to use to get to a total of nine measures, Bohl said. Bohl’s practice used the ACR Clinical Data registry to help them meet their PQRS measures.
“I was not going to get to nine for any of our doctors using basic PQRS measures,” he said. “It would have been very challenging.”
Exceptions are made for radiologists that have a very narrow practice, but most diagnostic radiologists have a broad enough practice that would make it difficult for them to qualify for exceptions, Bohl said.
A Victory for Radiology: New CMS Proposal Would Provide Coverage of CT Colonography in 2025
July 12th 2024In newly issued proposals addressing changes to coverage for Medicare services in 2025, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced its intent to provide coverage of computed tomography colonography (CTC) for Medicare beneficiaries in 2025.
The Reading Room Podcast: Emerging Trends in the Radiology Workforce
February 11th 2022Richard Duszak, MD, and Mina Makary, MD, discuss a number of issues, ranging from demographic trends and NPRPs to physician burnout and medical student recruitment, that figure to impact the radiology workforce now and in the near future.
ACR Collaborative Model Leads to 35 Percent Improvement with Mammography Positioning Criteria
July 1st 2024Noting significant variation with facilities for achieving passing criteria for mammography positioning, researchers found that structured interventions, ranging from weekly auditing of images taken by technologists to mechanisms for feedback from radiologists to technologists, led to significant improvements in a multicenter study.
New Study Shows Non-Radiologists Interpreting 28 Percent of Imaging for Medicare Patients
June 28th 2024While radiologists interpreted approximately 99 percent of all non-cardiac CT, MRI and nuclear medicine studies in hospital and emergency department settings for Medicare beneficiaries, new research shows significantly less radiologist review of cardiac imaging and office-based imaging.