MGMA: Medicare quality reporting costly

While getting an extra 1.5 percent bonus from Medicare may be nice, there's some meaningful administrative costs to participating, a new study suggests. The survey released at the Medical Group Management Association's annual conference found that 11 percent of practices were participating in the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), and 44 percent were reporting such measures. The groups were reporting on five quality measures on average.

All told, it seems that their participation has proved to be a mixed blessing at best. Even to report on just five measures, physicians had to make some administrative adjustments. For example, 35 percent had to create an addendum to their "superbill" paperwork to capture quality coding information; at least one employee had to oversee related paperwork, and 17 percent had to increase staff salaries. Meanwhile, respondents weren't sure whether PQRI reporting could help improve outcomes, with only 16 percent rating outcomes improvement as good or excellent.

To get more information from the study:
- read this MGMA press release

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