IPRO Vice President and Chief Quality Officer Edison Machado, MD, MBA chaired a workgroup of AHQA that submitted industry comments June 27 on a major proposed rule regarding the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. MIPS replaces the Sustainable Growth Rate formula for updating Medicare payments to physicians. Under the new law, Medicare Part B payments to practitioners will be adjusted annually by up to 4% upwards and downwards based on performance scores beginning in 2019. Additionally, AHQA is nominating Dr. Machado to serve on a Technical Expert Panel that will advise CMS on development of episode-based resource use measures to be developed in support of Medicare’s quality-based payment methodology. For more on this topic, see last article on this page.