2024 MIPS and QPP Final Rule: Key Highlights
On November 2, 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officially released the 2024 Quality Payment Program (QPP) final rule. The 2,709-page final rule contained many changes that will take place in the 2024 MIPS performance year and beyond.
This blog post breaks down the final changes to the QPP and MIPS for 2024.
Performance Threshold
CMS did not finalize their proposal to increase the threshold to avoid a penalty from 75 points in 2023 to 82 points for 2024. The 2024 threshold to avoid a penalty will remain 75 points. This is a huge win for clinicians and the result of our advocacy and the advocacy of medical associations.
Category Weights
CMS is not changing performance category weights in 2024.
Quality Category
Measure Scoring
No changes, so the following measure scoring rules will remain in effect:
- For large practices (>15 clinicians), remove the 3-point floor for measures meeting data completeness and case minimum. These measures would be scored on a 1-10 point scale instead of a 3-10 point scale.
- For small practices, the 3-point floor will remain.
Bonuses
- No change to the small practice bonus or the improvement score bonus.
Measures
Three new ophthalmology-specific measures will be added in 2024:
- Measure 499: Appropriate Screening and Plan of Care for Elevated IOP Following Intravitreal or Periocular Steroid Therapy
- Measure 500: Acute Posterior Vitreous Detachment Appropriate Examination and Follow-up
- Measure 501: Acute Posterior Vitreous Detachment and Acute Vitreous Hemorrhage Appropriate Examination and Follow-up
We had the opportunity to test these measures with the ASRS last year, and we are excited to implement them for our retina specialists in 2024.
Overall, CMS has finalized the removal of 11 MIPS quality measures, modifications to 59 existing measures, and the addition of 13 new quality measures. For pertinent measure changes, review our Top 2024 Final MIPS Changes Report.
Data Completeness Threshold
- Increasing to 75% for performance years 2024 – 2026 (up from 70% in 2023).
Cost Category
Scoring
Beginning with 2023, CMS has changed the calculation of the Cost category improvement score* from being measure-based (meaning that only measure-specific improvement would receive a Cost category bonus) to being calculated at the category-level (meaning that overall category score improvement would lead to a Cost category improvement bonus).
*The Cost improvement score bonus will remain limited to a maximum of 1 percentage point added onto the category performance percent.
Measures
There are no changes to the cataract measure, the melanoma measure, or the diabetes measure.
CMS will add five new episode-based cost measures:
- Depression
- Emergency Medicine
- Heart Failure
- Low Back Pain
- Psychoses and Related Conditions
CMS decided to remove the Simple Pneumonia with Hospitalization measure as they are no longer able to assess the cost of pneumonia-related care due to coding changes.
Improvement Activities
There are no significant changes for scoring or reporting this category. There are several changes to the list of improvement activities (IAs), including:
- Five new IAs, none of which are relevant to our specialists.
- One change to an existing IA (IA_PSPA_16: Use of Decision Support and Standardized Treatment Protocols).
- Three removals, none of which are relevant to our specialists.
Promoting Interoperability (PI)
CMS will increase the performance period to 180 consecutive days (up from 90 consecutive days in 2023) to align with the performance period in the Promoting Interoperability Program for eligible hospitals.
CMS has finalized the following measure changes beginning in 2024:
- Query of Prescription Drug Monitoring Measure: Change to low-volume exclusion
- Current language: “Eligible clinician writes fewer than 100 permissible prescriptions during the 90-day performance period”.
- For the purposes of this exclusion, “permissible prescriptions” refers to Schedule II opioids and Schedule III and IV drugs.
- New language: “Does not electronically prescribe any Schedule II opioids or Schedule III or IV drugs during the performance period.”
- This change explicitly excludes only clinicians or groups that do not e-prescribe any Schedule II opioids and Schedule III and IV drugs.
- Current language: “Eligible clinician writes fewer than 100 permissible prescriptions during the 90-day performance period”.
- Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER) Guides Measure
- CMS will require a “yes” response for this measure beginning with the 2024 performance year.
- For more information on the SAFER Guides, review our Guide to the SAFER Guide.
MIPS Value Pathways (MVPs)
There are no currently available MVPs relevant to our specialists.
Next Steps
- Review our Top 2024 Final MIPS Changes Report for a quick rundown of major MIPS changes relevant to our specialties.
- Subscribe to our newsletter to get alerts on this and other important issues.
- If you are not an Anatomy IT client, contact us to learn more about our MIPS Success Plan and to reap the rewards of our combined decades of experience.