The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released preliminary participation data for the Quality Payment Program (QPP) in 2020.

The California Medical Association (CMA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) strongly advocated for significant relief in 2020 as physicians faced clinical and financial challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, CMS applied an automatic Extreme and Uncontrollable Hardship Exception to individual eligible clinicians in MIPS; accepted hardship exception applications from individuals, groups and APM entities; and automatically reweighted the cost category to 0% of the final 2020 score.

As a result, 91%of eligible clinicians in MIPS are receiving a positive payment update of up to 1.87% in 2022 based on their 2020 MIPS performance, 7% percent have a neutral payment adjustment and only 2% are facing a penalty.

Despite the ongoing challenges caused by the COVID-19 public health emergency, clinicians still overwhelmingly engaged in QPP and submitted 2020 data.

The final participation results will be available in the coming months.