Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

If you’ve been impacted by the Change Healthcare cyberattack and you can prove it’s affected your Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) 2023 data submissions, we’ve got good news for you.

Details: On March 15, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it was reopening the 2023 MIPS Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances (EUC) Exception Application and extending the timeline for submitting data in response to the Change Healthcare cyberattack, the agency notes in an alert.

Caveat: “Because CMS is reopening the 2023 MIPS EUC Exception Application window in response to the Change Healthcare cyberattack, CMS will only approve applications citing this cyberattack as the basis for requesting reweighting under the MIPS EUC Exception,” the agency warns. “Any applications submitted for reasons outside of the Change Healthcare cyberattack will be denied.”

“Additionally, any data submitted to CMS will override your application for those performance categories,” the agency cautions further.

Deadline: MIPS clinicians now have until April 15 at 8 p.m. ET to submit their EUC Exception applications via the Quality Payment Program (QPP) portal. Once you’ve completed the application, remember to “select ‘Ransom/ Malware’ as the Event Type and include ‘Change Healthcare cyberattack’ in the Event Description,” CMS guidance advises.

Read more about EUC Exception applications and find the link to the Change Healthcare-related application at https://qpp.cms. gov/mips/exception-applications.