Quality Payment Program year 2 begins

The clock is officially ticking for clinicians hoping to earn a bonus in 2018 under the Quality Payment Program.

The program will reward clinicians who make the leap to a 2015-certified electronic health record system. Those who stick with a 2014-certified product won't be dinged for lagging adoption of the new EHR, but they also won't be eligible for a bump in pay. That's because CMS deemed the 2018 reporting year, which kicked off Jan. 1, as a "transition year." This mirrors changes the CMS made for hospitals, which can also use 2014-certified products in 2018 without being penalized.

The quality program, authorized under the Medicare and CHIP Reauthorization Act, created new payment models for clinicians. It pulled physicians out of the meaningful use EHR incentive program, instead requiring them to meet a different set of measures. A consequence is that physician and hospital measures do not totally align.

Trade groups, chief information officers and others had worried that forcing providers to use 2015-certified EHRs by the start of 2018 would have many rushing to implement new systems, which require between eight and 18 months to install and get used to, according to the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives.

Currently, there are 167 products certified in the 2015 edition.

The CMS intends the second year of the Quality Payment Program to guide clinicians toward value-based care.

"A second year to ramp up the program will continue to help build upon the iterative learning and development of year 1 in preparation for a robust program in year 3," the agency wrote late last year in a rule.