Make MACRA a team effort for success in your practice

If you are concerned about how your practice should implement MACRA — the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 — you are not alone.

Doral Davis-Jacobsen, MBA, FACMPE, MGMA member, chief executive officer, Prosper Beyond, Inc., Ashville, N.C., and Nanci Robertson, BSN, MHA, MGMA member, president, Robertson Consulting, Inc., Littleton, Colo., discussed tips for how to get your practice ready in a recent interview for MGMA Small Talk.

Jacobsen recommends administrators use the data from their Quality and Resource Use Reports (QRUR) to help guide implementation. The data can work “as a compass to point practices in a direction to work on things that are going to help them in all categories of the Quality Payment Program (QPP).” She also recommends administrators break out of their silos, and “bring a holistic view to developing and executing a path for success in the program.”

“It really takes a team effort within a practice … to do well within MACRA [and QPP], and I think practice administrators should really build a team and, hopefully with their clinicians as well … to select the measures that make the most sense for their practice,” says Robertson. 

If you are on the fence about whether to participate this year, Robertson says it’s worth it. “There’s really minimal risk for providers to participate in it [this year], so we encourage providers to basically take a serious look at what’s doable for them within the QPP and maybe take on a few extra things, because there’s no real downside risk for participation in it,” she says.  

Both Jacobsen and Robertson emphasize the importance of having buy-in from providers and the entire clinical staff. “We have to have everyone rowing in the same direction to really get the biggest bang for the buck,” says Jacobsen. 

But the biggest piece of advice from Jacobsen and Robertson is to start figuring out your MACRA implementation right away. “Change takes a long time to implement,” says Jacobsen.

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