In order to participate for calendar year 2014 you must register by 01/30/15 and report by 02/15/15. If you qualify for one of the Measures Groups you must report on at least 20 patients. However, if you do not meet one of the 25 Groups (and most Phlebologists do not) then you must report on individual measures. There are 358 of these.
“2014 PQRS Reporting for 2016 Payment Adjustment Avoidance: Report 50% of your eligible patient visits for at least 3 measures listed below to avoid the 2% payment adjustment (reduction) in 2016. Note this option will not result in any incentive payment for 2014.”
I have reviewed all 358 and found only three that a phlebologist may be able to report on which make some sense for a phlebology practice. (This is, of course, entirely subject to your practice; you may be treating diabetes, or managing anti-depressant medications, etc., in which case you may be able to report on other measures.)
Measure # 130 Documentation of current medications in the medical record, #131 Pain assessment and follow-up, and #358 Patient centered surgical risk assessment and communication.
In order to do this, you must either have a software program that reports PQRS for you, in which case you may have already met your measures, or pay to use an external portal. There are a number of these and we added a couple links below to assist in finding them. You then need to assign an employee to enter this information into the portal. This could take a couple hours if you are able to meet one of the aforementioned groups, or much longer if you need to enter the 50% of eligible patient visits. An eligible patient visit is defined by the CPT code submitted, such as a 99203 and is a Medicare Part B patient.
The penalty schedule as set by the ACA is 2% starting in 2016 for the 2014 reporting year. This 2% penalty will continue thereafter. So the question becomes, which is more costly to your practice? Reporting ASAP to avoid the penalty or the 2% reduction based upon your current Medicare patient revenues.
This is a link to the approved CMS registries;
http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/PQRS/Downloads/2014QualifiedRegistries.pdf
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