FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2017
Contact:
Sara Medley, CEO
Mountain-Pacific Quality Health
406.457.5820
smedley@mpqhf.org
Mountain-Pacific Quality Health to Support Small Physician Practices in CMS Quality Payment Program
(Helena, Mont.) – Thanks to new funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Mountain-Pacific Quality Health will help small physician practices in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska prepare for and participate in the new Quality Payment Program. The program was established by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. Its goal is to improve the quality of care for Medicare members through provider payment reform, the system that holds health care providers to certain standards of quality care as an incentive to earn performance-based payments.
Mountain-Pacific will partner with the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), a national health care organization that works to improve health and health care in communities across the United States, and HealthInsight, a private, nonprofit organization that works to improve health care systems in Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The five-year contract was awarded through a competitive request-for-proposal process and will be administered by CMS.
“We are pleased to have this opportunity to support our small and rural practices,” said Sara Medley, Mountain-Pacific’s CEO. “Through this partnership, Mountain-Pacific will assist eligible practitioners navigate through the complicated process of payment transformation. Our expert staff will help physician practices understand payment reform, quality performance measurement and reporting and support them in what matters most to all of us, improving patient care. We have been a trusted health care partner for decades, and this work is just one more way we can show our commitment to improving lives in the communities we serve.”
The direct technical assistance and support are available immediately to all Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)-eligible clinicians for up to five years. Small practices with 15 or fewer clinicians and small practices in rural locations will receive the support needed to participate in the Quality Payment Program.
About Mountain-Pacific—Mountain-Pacific is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation and holds federal and state contracts that allow them to oversee the quality of care for Medicare and Medicaid members. Mountain-Pacific works within its region (Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. Pacific Territories of Guam and American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) to help improve the delivery of health care and the systems that provide it. Mountain-Pacific’s goal is to increase access to high-quality health care that is affordable, safe and of value to the patients they serve. www.mpqhf.org