Dear Chairmen and Ranking Members,
The Alliance of Specialty Medicine (the “Alliance”) represents more than 100,000 specialty physicians and
is dedicated to the development of sound federal health care policy that fosters patient access to the
highest quality specialty care. The Alliance writes to urge Congress to extend positive physician payment
updates to the conversion factor, the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) exceptional
performance bonus and the Advanced Alternative Payment Models (A-APM) incentive payments.
Currently, these positive payments are scheduled to expire at the end of 2019, and the MIPS exceptional
performance bonus and A-APM incentive payments will expire at the end of 2022. Positive payment
updates will help to ensure that Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) and the programs under the Medicare
Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) continue to be viable options to ensure access to
quality specialty care for all our patients.
We thank Congress for the enactment of technical corrections to MACRA in the Bipartisan Budget Act
of 2018 (BBA of 2018), which significantly improved the ability of Medicare physicians to participate in
MIPS – an important pathway for specialists to engage in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services (CMS) Quality Payment Program (QPP). However, stable payment updates for Medicare
physicians are essential to ensure ongoing, and even increased, engagement in the QPP. In addition, as
specialty-focused advanced alternative payment models (A-APM) are developed and implemented,
incentives to participate in this track of the QPP must be available.
Read full letter here
