HHS Secretary Alex Azar said he wants to reduce or possibly eliminate reporting requirements for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), instead using claims data and patient surveys so clinicians won’t have to submit any data themselves.

“What we’re doing is taking a whole host of physicians who not only will have reduced reporting burdens but maybe none under the MIPS part of that program,” Azar said to the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 16.

Paul Ginsburg, PhD, a health policy professor at the University of Southern California and member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), told Morning Consult the change would especially help smaller practices which find the current requirements too expensive. But he also said there would be drawbacks.

“Even though claims data can accurately reflect some aspects of quality, attributing that beneficiary’s quality of care to any physician practice is problematic because so many different physicians and other providers may be involved in that person’s care,” Ginsburg said.

Ginsburg believes the current reporting requirements are ineffective because clinicians can choose the quality measures on which they’re judged. That’s one of the reasons MedPAC has proposed Congress eliminate MIPS and replace it with the Voluntary Value Program (VVP), which pushes physicians toward alternative payment models.

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