CMS Announces Relief for Clinicians Participating in the Quality Payment Program in 2020

In response to the 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) public health emergency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is announcing flexibilities for clinicians participating in the Quality Payment Program (QPP) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) in 2020:

Clinicians significantly impacted by the public health emergency may submit an Extreme & Uncontrollable Circumstances Application to reweight any or all of the MIPS performance categories. Those requesting relief via the application will need to provide a justification of how their practice has been significantly impacted by the public health emergency.
Reminder: In April, CMS added a new COVID-19 clinical trials improvement activity. There are two ways MIPS eligible clinicians or groups can receive credit for this new improvement activity:
- A clinician may participate in a COVID-19 clinical trial and have those data entered into a data platform for that study; or
- A clinician participating in the care of COVID-19 patients may submit clinical COVID-19 patient data to a clinical data registry for purposes of future study.

For More Information

Visit the QPP COVID-19 Response webpage or review the COVID-19 Fact Sheet to learn more about changes to the Quality Payment Program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Review the 2020 Exception Applications Fact Sheet and QPP Exception Applications webpage for more information about submitting an Extreme & Uncontrollable Circumstances Application.
Read more about the COVID-19 clinical trials improvement activity in the 2020 Improvement Activities Inventory.

Questions?

Contact the Quality Payment Program at 1-866-288-8292 or by e-mail at: QPP@cms.hhs.gov. To receive assistance more quickly, please consider calling during non-peak hours—before 10:00 a.m. and after 2:00 p.m. ET.

Customers who are hearing impaired can dial 711 to be connected to a TRS Communications Assistant.

These flexibilities, and earlier CMS actions in response to the COVID-19 virus, are part of the ongoing White House Task Force efforts. To keep up with the important work the Task Force is doing in response to COVID-19 click here: www.coronavirus.gov. For information specific to CMS, please visit the Current Emergencies Website.