On September 28, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a request for information (“RFI”) seeking comments on two key components of the physician payment reform provisions included in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (“MACRA”), the law enacted on April 16, 2015, repealing the sustainable growth rate formula used to update payment rates under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.  The RFI was originally open for a 30-comment period.  However, CMS has announced that it is extending the comment period for an additional 15 days.  Comments to the RFI are now due to CMS on November 17, 2015.

The RFI included an extensive list of questions related to the implementation of the Merit-Based Incentive Program System (“MIPS”), as well as adoption and physician participation in Alternative Payment Models (“APMs”) and Physician-Focused Payment Models (“PFPMs”). 

Importantly, in the CMS announcement extending the public comment period released on October 15, 2015, CMS identified sections and questions in the RFI that are of higher priority to the agency.  For example, CMS has ranked questions about how physicians should be identified to determine eligibility, participation, and performance under the MIPS performance categories, and what measures and reporting mechanisms should be used for each of the four MIPS performance categories (quality, resource use, clinical practice improvement activities, and meaningful use of certified electronic health record technology), above questions about public reporting requirements, use of measures from other payment systems, and the weighting of performance categories and the determination of performance scores and thresholds.  Similarly, for questions related to the adoption of APMs, CMS has prioritized questions about how to define the amount of services furnished through an eligible APM entity, how to determine the Medicare and other payer payment thresholds used to identify qualifying and partial qualifying APM participants, and how to compare state Medicaid medical home models to medical home models expanded under Section 1115A(c) of the Social Security Act.  Given the short period of time to provide comments to CMS, stakeholders should consider the priority rankings that CMS has assigned to the various topics that it is seeking input on.

All stakeholders, not just physicians, should consider how the fundamental shift in Medicare physician payments, from traditional fee-for-service to value-based models, will impact them.  It is important to engage with CMS now by submitting comments to the RFI, in order to shape how these new payment mechanisms are implemented in the years to come.