Message from the Editor

Dear Members of the Democratic Group Practice Section:

A great deal of time, energy and angst over the last year has been spent on MACRA and MIPS.  The time to start reporting is upon us as incentives and penalties begin with 2017 reporting.  Many of us certainly have mixed emotions.  Our lives are filled with enough boxes to check and enough hoops to jump through.  On the other hand, improvement in care delivery should be rewarded.  Our group will be partnering with our billing company and ACEP’s Clinical Emergency Data Registry (CEDR) to begin reporting MIPS related metrics this year. 

In this newsletter, you will find a nice update on MACRA and MIPS written by Jim Blakeman, Senior Vice President of Emergency Groups Office. He has been involved in emergency physician billing and coding policy development for more than thirty years, and frequently lectures on those topics throughout the country.  Also, Dr. Pawan Goyal, ACEP’s Associate Executive Director for Quality, explains CEDR and how it is serving the quality reporting needs of emergency physicians and groups. 

I look forward to our section meeting and hearing different strategies people are using to transition into this next payment model. 

Please ask your friends and colleagues to join the section, get out to residencies to discuss diversity of practice and talk to democratic groups.

Thanks!

Jay Mullen MD MBA FACEP
Chief Executive Officer
BlueWater Emergency Partners
Democratic Group Practice Section Secretary/Newsletter Editor