Medicare Issues PQRI Payments
Physicians who successfully reported their quality measures to Medicare in 2007 as part of the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative should have received their bonus payments last month. Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently announced that they had already paid out more than $36 million in bonuses to physicians and other health professionals as part of the PQRI. Of the approximately 109,000 health care professionals who reported data on Medicare services provided during July-December 2007, more than 56,700 met the reporting requirements and would be receiving bonus checks, according to the CMS. The average bonus paid to an individual provider was more than $600, and the average bonus for a physician group practice was more than $4,700. The largest payment to a physician group practice was more than $205,700, the CMS.reported. “These payments to physicians for participating in the PQRI are a first step toward improving how Medicare pays for health care services,” Kerry Weems, acting administrator, said in a statement. Under the PQRI, physicians could earn bonus payments of up to 1.5% of their total allowed Medicare charges by successfully reporting quality data for Medicare services provided from July to December 2007. In addition to the bonus payments, physicians and other health professionals can also start accessing confidential feedback reports on their performance. To access the feedback reports, providers must register with the Individuals Authorized Access to CMS Computer Services-Provider Community (IACS-PC). More information on the program is available at