Per the final rule by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Health and Human Services (HHS), to be able to receive payment for their Promoting Interoperability (PI) score, eligible clinicians must attest YES to this required measure, the SAFER High Priority Practices Guide. The attestation is part of the MIPS Promoting Interoperability Protect Patient Health Information objective for the Calendar Year (CY) 2024 performance period/2026 MIPS payment year.
Note: The 2024 PI reporting period must be a minimum of 180 consecutive days.
What are the SAFER Guides?
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) developed the SAFER Guides with the goal of increasing the safe use of EHRs. The Guides are a set of self-assessment tools that aim to help healthcare organizations evaluate their EHR safety practices, identify potential risks, and mitigate those risks. Each Guide includes a self-assessment checklist, action-based worksheets, and recommended practices that are designed to help your organization reduce EHR-related patient safety risk, optimize the safe use of EHRs, and create a “culture of safety.” The Guides are presented in an interactive PDF format with bookmarks, links, and drop-down list functions that make it easy to use, share, collaborate on, and make a fresh copy for a later assessment.
What does this mean for gGastro® On-Prem clients?
For this measure, which previously could be attested with a YES or NO response, a MIPS eligible clinician must now attest YES to having conducted an annual self-assessment using the High Priority Practices Guide at any point during the calendar year in which the performance period occurs if they wish to receive credit for this measure. In order to complete a “self-assessment” using the High Priority Practices Guide, the user would complete a review and mark the associated checkboxes (fully, partially, or not implemented) of recommended practices included at the beginning of the Guide. For performance year 2024, a “no” answer will result in a score of zero for the overall Promoting Interoperability score.
Please note: The attestation requirement is ONLY for the High Priority Practices Guide (not all nine Guides), which identifies “high risk” and “high priority” recommended safety practices, intended to optimize the safety and safe use of EHRs.
We are providing the following details regarding gGastro’s established EHR processes and recommended best practices, as pertinent to the High Priority Practices Guide, to assist you with completing the self-assessment and thus meeting the assessment requirement.
We encourage you to retain documentation of your completed self-assessment. You will need that documentation if you are selected by CMS for an audit.
Please click here to view the SAFER Guide Recommended Practice and MMI Safe Use Recommendations. This document provides guidance on completing sections of the guide where the Source of Input is “EHR Developer.”
The complete guide can be accessed here. For more information, please visit qpp.cms.gov.
If you would like to designate a patient safety point of contact for all patient safety-related messages, please update your practice contact information in ModMed® Communities. If you have any questions regarding this notice, you may contact us by email at support@modmed.com.
MIPS Advisory Services
With ModMed’s MIPS Advisory Services, a dedicated advisor can help you meet your goals! MIPS Advisors, who are trained in gGastro®, can work with you to build your practice’s custom MIPS project plan and answer questions, monitor your performance, and more. Fill out the form here to get in touch with the MIPS team.