The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently awarded approximately $20 million to 11 organizations for the first year of a five-year program to provide on-the-ground training and education about the Quality Payment Program for clinicians in individual or small group practices of 15 clinicians or fewer. CMS intends to invest up to an additional $80 million over the remaining four years.
Small practices with 15 or fewer clinicians, including those in rural locations, health professional shortage areas, and medically underserved areas are a crucial part of the health care system. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) provides direct technical assistance to help individual Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) eligible clinicians and small practices in these settings participate in the Quality Payment Program.
The training and education resources are available now, at no cost to eligible clinicians and practices (15 clinicians or fewer).
Get help with:
- MIPS expectations and timelines
- Understanding the MIPS feedback report
- Creating a MIPS-score improvement plan
- Evaluating your practice readiness for joining an Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM)
- Assessing and optimizing your Health Information Technology
- Change management and strategic planning
- Developing and disseminating education and training materials
- Peer-to-peer learning and local partnerships
These organizations were awarded CMS contracts to provide customized quality payment program help and training:
If you are in an individual or group practice with 15 clinicians or fewer, you are eligible for this technical assistance, authorized and funded under MACRA. You can locate the contact information of the local or regional organization servicing your state below.
If you are in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin, or Minnesota:
Altarum – Altarum can be contacted through Francois de Brantes: 734-205-6102, francois.debrantes@altarum.org
If you are in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, or South Carolina:
Georgia Medical Care Foundation (GMCF) – GMCF can be contacted by calling 678-527-3100
If you are in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, or Vermont:
Healthcentric Advisors – Contact the New England Quality Payment Program Support Center at NEQPPSURS@healthcentricadvisors.org
If you are in Arizona, California, Hawaii, or New Mexico:
Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG) – Click on “Meet the Experts” for direct contact information by your state
If you are in New York, Maryland, Virginia, or the District of Columbia:
Ipro – Call 516-326-6182
If you are in Alaska, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, or Wyoming:
NRHI – NRHI is partnering with HealthInsight and Mountain-Pacific Quality Health to provide technical assistance to small practices in these states. Eligible clinicians can request this support by contacting the following:
- For providers in Utah, Oregon and Nevada: qpp@healthinsight.org
- For providers in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska: QualityPaymentHelp@mpqhf.org
If you are in Tennessee or Alabama:
Qsource – Contact Brooke Tweddell, Phone: 901-273-2646 or 901-270-4870 or via email: btweddell@qsource.org
If you are in Idaho or Washington:
Qualis Health – Qualis Health can be contacted via email at info@qualishealth.org.
If you are in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or West Virginia:
Quality Insights (West Virginia Medical Institute) – Quality Insights can be reached via email at qpp-surs@qualityinsights.org
If you are in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota or North Dakota:
Telligen – Program details such as how to enroll are forthcoming. In the meantime, questions can be directed to Susan Brown, Health IT Director at Telligen (515-440-8215) or submitted to qpp-surs@telligen.com.
If you are in Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma or Puerto Rico:
TMF Health Quality Institute – Contact 1-844-317-7609 or email QPP-SURS@tmf.org
Important Resources
For more information on the Quality Payment Program, visit qpp.cms.gov or contact the Quality Payment Program by calling 1-866-288-8292 or emailing qpp@cms.hhs.gov.
Download the CMS Fact sheet with US Map containing contact information for the organizations above.