Risks of MIPS as a DIY Project

Do-it-yourself (DIY) projects can be a great way to save money. And the Internet makes projects of all types and complexity seem accessible thanks to a seemingly infinite selection of instructional videos and blog posts. The DIY phenomenon has exploded in recent years thanks, in large part, to the internet and social media sharing.

You may be tempted to DIY some projects for your medical practice too, since there are online resources for everything from HIPAA training to how to succeed in payer quality initiatives. Plus, they make it look easy, cheap, and doable? So, why not?

The truth is that DIY projects aren’t always easy or cheap, and they may involve technical expertise that’s best left to the professionals. In fact, DIY
projects done in a medical practice come with risks. If, for example, you’re redesigning the office and order the wrong chairs, it’s not such a big problem. You can likely return the chairs, but you may lose the shipping money.

However, if you try to DIY a quality payment program, like the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), the impact in the short term and long term could be devastating to your finances and reputation. Consider that getting it wrong could mean taking up to a 9% penalty on your Medicare reimbursement and that even if you get by without a penalty, this particular DIY project can be audited for up to 7 years.

This is an area where a professional could be of exponential value. Tackling MIPS alone leaves you subject to tons of policy blind spots.

If you:
·Select the wrong quality measures, you minimize points and may cause unnecessary operational and clinical burden.
·Get a late start to collecting quality measure data, you could miss the 80% data completeness threshold.
·Report too few qualify measures, you’ll go through a mandatory validation process.
·Forget to perform a Security Risk Analysis (SRA) or assure compliant Information Blocking policies and practices, you will forgo all Promoting Interoperability (PI) points at the time of attestation or during a future audit.
·Don’t understand the Improvement Activities (IA) data validation requirements, you could lose 15 points down the road.
·Ignore the Cost category, you put 30 points at risk starting in 2022.
·Get denied in a Targeted Review, you’ll miss out on how our experts could find another path forward.

With thousands of pages of program policy and rules under their belt, it is not easy to replicate the quality and value that a professional brings to the
table.

Chirpy Bird’s MIPS consulting provides affordable monthly service to support you in program education, reporting surveillance, workflow guidance, federal
updates, and audit support. it is our full-time job to help you succeed and avoid these DIY pitfalls.

Schedule a time to connect with us for an affordable monthly quote today. 888-647-7247 or email hello@chirpybirdinc.com