Making sense of the four MIPS performance categories

Why This Topic Matters

MIPS was a major Medicare reporting and payment framework, so understanding its categories and timing helped clinicians and practices prepare submissions, avoid penalties, and position themselves for future payment adjustments. The article is relevant to organizations managing quality reporting, EHR-based documentation, and performance measurement workflows.

Article Sections

1. Overview of MIPS for 2017

   Introduces the first year of MIPS reporting and summarizes how the program fit within the Quality Payment Program. It also explains the relationship between MIPS and earlier Medicare reporting initiatives.

2. The Quality category

   Discusses the structure of the Quality category, including measure selection, reporting approaches, scoring concepts, and how clinicians could think about performance benchmarks for the year.

3. The Cost category

   Covers how cost data were handled in the first reporting year and how CMS approached feedback and future weighting for this category. It also describes the general types of cost measures under review.

4. Advancing Care Information

   Explains the ACI category, its scoring components, and the reporting paths tied to certified EHR technology. It also notes flexibility, exclusions, and how performance affected the category score.

5. Improvement Activities

   Reviews the Improvement Activities category, including its focus areas, general scoring structure, and participation options for different clinician types. It also outlines the category’s role in the total MIPS score.

6. What to do in 2017

   Provides a planning-oriented overview of the steps clinicians needed to take during the reporting year. The section emphasizes participation choices, reporting structure, and timing considerations.