The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) paid more than 85,000 physicians $92 million in incentive payments under the 2008 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) for the entire calendar year.
The amount represents a one-third increase in the total number of participants since 2007, when 56,700 eligible professionals received $36 million in payments for a reporting period limited to six months.
The PQRI was established in late 2006 as a voluntary program to allow physicians and other eligible healthcare professionals to receive incentive payments for reporting data on quality measures related to services furnished to Medicare beneficiaries. Physicians who participated and complied with the rules in 2007 and 2008 received incentive payments of 1.5% of the total estimated allowed charges under Medicare Part B for covered professional services.
More than 153,600 professionals participated in the 2008 PQRI. Of those, more than 85,000 physicians and other eligible professionals met statutory requirements for satisfactory reporting for the 2008 reporting period, according to a statement from CMS.
Health practices in Florida and Illinois received the highest incentive payments for the 2008 PQRI, more than $7.5 million and more than $6 million, respectively.
The U.S. Congress increased the incentive that eligible professionals could receive for satisfactorily reporting data from 1.5% to 2.0% of the estimate of the allowed charges under Medicare Part B for all such covered professional services furnished during the applicable reporting period for 2009 and 2010. Starting in 2009, CMS added 52 new quality measures, raising the total number of measures to 153.
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