Overview
I plan to focus on women’s health in my future practice and one area that MIPS could be used to improve the quality of care would be quality patient education. If our reimbursement for services depended on patient teaching as evidenced by reduction in hospitalizations, improved compliance with medications, or increases in the number of patients who complete wellness activities, my practice would demonstrate excellence in patient care.
MIPS supports financial viability of healthcare providers, organizations, and client health outcomes by tying the financial health of an organization to improved health outcomes. If you provide poor patient care, you will be reimbursed at the lower amount. The same is true of providers who provide excellent care, who will be reimbursed at the higher rate.
Advanced Practice Nurses can contribute to the development and refinement of MIPS quality measures by becoming experts on the subject and the guidelines from the governing agencies. Using our expertise as healthcare professionals we can assess if the measures are valid, reliable, or meaningful. According to the National Library of Medicine, “It is unclear whether the MIPS quality score can accurately distinguish between high-performing and low-performing clinicians.” (Schloemann et al., 2024) Our close proximity to the patients and doctors help us to see both sides of the issue and make APRN’s experts on the real-world application of MIPS quality measures and the subsequent effects. I know in my own personal experience I can see that the measure related to readmissions can be a faulty measure for a few different factors.