PQRI Bonus Payments

With the time and efforts made by those participating in the PQRI bonus program, the arrival of the bonus check will be welcomed. For those who participated in the 2008 program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that the 2008 bonus payments will be distributed in October 2009. They also indicate that associated reports will be revised from the 2007 reports and easier to understand.

Practices still hopeful of a 2007 bonus payment will know in November 2009 if the re-run of data resulted in a bonus payment. A complex formula is being applied to those who previously did not receive a bonus payment but became eligible after further analysis of their 2007 data. A step-by-step guide to the re-run calculation can be found on the CMS website at

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/PQRI/Downloads/GuideforUnderstanding2007Re-RunPQRIIncentivePayment063_508.pdf

We expect changes in the 2010 program for ophthalmologists, with new reportable measures and changes to existing measures. The final program will be published in the Federal Register in early November.