Title 42

SECTION 414.1317

414.1317 APM Entity groups.

§ 414.1317 APM Entity groups.

(a) APM entity group determination. The APM Entity group will be determined according to the requirements set forth in § 414.1425(b)(1).

(1) In addition to the dates set forth in § 414.1425(b)(1), for purposes of MIPS, the APM Entity group includes an eligible clinician who is on a Participation List on December 31 of the MIPS performance period.

(2) For purposes of MIPS scoring, the APM Entity group will be comprised only of those eligible clinicians within the APM Entity group who are determined to be MIPS eligible at the individual or group level.

(3) For purposes of calculating the APM Entity group score, MIPS scores submitted by virtual groups will not be included.

(b) APM Entity group scoring. The MIPS final score calculated for the APM Entity is applied to each MIPS eligible clinician in the APM Entity group. The MIPS payment adjustment is applied at the TIN/NPI level for each of the MIPS eligible clinicians in the APM Entity group.

(1) Determination of performance category score for each MIPS eligible clinician in an APM Entity. For APM Entities, where a performance category is not reported by the APM Entity, CMS uses one score for each MIPS eligible clinician in an APM Entity group to derive a single average APM Entity score for the performance category. The applicable score for each MIPS eligible clinician is the higher of either:

(i) A group score based on the measure data for the performance category reported by a TIN for the MIPS eligible clinician according to MIPS submission and reporting requirements for groups.

(ii) An individual score based on the measure data for the performance category reported by the MIPS eligible clinician according to MIPS submission and reporting requirements for individuals.

(iii) In the event that a MIPS eligible clinician in an APM Entity receives an exception from the reporting requirements, such eligible clinician will be assigned a null score when CMS calculates the APM Entity's performance category score.

(2) Cost scoring for APM Entity groups. The cost performance category weight is zero percent for APM Entities in MIPS APMs.

(3) Improvement scoring for APM Entity groups. For an APM Entity for which CMS calculated a total performance category score for one or more participants in the APM Entity for the preceding MIPS performance period, CMS calculates an improvement score for each performance category for which a previous year's total performance category score is available as specified in § 414.1380(b).

(4) Extreme and uncontrollable circumstances. Beginning with the 2022 MIPS payment year, an APM Entity may submit to CMS an application described at § 414.1380(c)(2)(i)(A)(6) and (c)(2)(i)(C)(2) requesting reweighting of all four MIPS performance categories and for all MIPS eligible clinicians in the APM Entity group, based on extreme and uncontrollable circumstances.

(i) An APM Entity must demonstrate in its application to CMS that greater than 75 percent of its participant MIPS eligible clinicians would be eligible for reweighting the Promoting Interoperability performance category for the applicable performance period.

(ii) If CMS approves the request for reweighting based on an APM Entity's application, and if MIPS data are submitted for the APM Entity for the applicable performance period, all four of the MIPS performance categories will be reweighted for the APM Entity group notwithstanding the data submission.

[85 FR 85030, Dec. 28, 2020]