Wellcentive Releases 2014 PQRS Solutions To Help Organizations Optimize Healthcare Quality And Financial Results

Pioneer in PQRS reporting introduces new multi-facility health system subscription

Wellcentive, the pioneer and leader in pay-for-performance and quality reporting for the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), announced recently its PQRS application is now available, one of the earliest full-service enterprise reporting solutions released to market this year. The solution is updated and fully compliant with the 2014 federal government registry guidelines including support for eligible physicians who wish to participate in the group practice reporting option (GPRO) and register by the September 30th deadline.

PQRS is a quality reporting program established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in which healthcare organizations, physicians, practitioners, therapists and other eligible professionals are responsible to report data on specific quality measures. CMS initially defined a combination of incentive payments and penalties to promote compliance and to drive improvement in patient care.

In 2014, three significant PQRS program changes occurred. First, this will be the final year for the incentive component of the program; incentive based payments to providers will be phased out for 2015. Second, PQRS penalties, which began in 2013, will increase to 2 percent of revenues and will be fully phased in for 2015. Third, the new value-based payment modifier will be implemented in which large group practices are subject to an additional 2 percent penalty or up to a 2 percent incentive.

Given these changes, PQRS will continue to have significant impact on the financial results of providers and organizations.

"Federally-mandated outcomes reporting is here to stay, and when optimally managed, can improve both financial and clinical performance," said Tom Zajac, CEO of Wellcentive. "Our seven years of refining our PQRS solutions will help our customers respond to this year's program changes, drive appropriate outcomes, and proactively manage these critical clinical care measures."

Mason Beard, Wellcentive's senior vice president of solutions and co-founder, noted, "Our customers view our comprehensive solution as the gateway to join risk-sharing care models requiring demonstrated reporting of quality measures - including the same measure sets that physicians and practices must report for PQRS - for value-based reimbursement.

"ACOs, for example, require that the documenting of high-quality care services delivered to Medicare patients be collected, measured and tracked before any savings are generated," Beard explained. "Through our deep experience in PQRS, Wellcentive delivers the technology, services and insight to generate proven documented customer success which unquestionably supports shared-savings initiatives."

Chosen in 2007 to work with CMS to test registry submission, Wellcentive is a charter and founding member of the CMS Registry Initiative, originally known as PQRI. The company has helped tens of thousands of primary care and specialty care providers successfully participate with the PQRI and PQRS programs.

Wellcentive offers two PQRS subscription options for eligible providers and organizations. Health organizations, multi-facility health systems and larger provider groups can use the PQRS Enterprise to support comprehensive proactive quality reporting. Providers and group practices can opt for the PQRS Provider comprehensive application including data verification and submission to CMS for all PQRS measures and measure groups.

About Wellcentive
Built from the ground up to help customers improve clinical, financial and human outcomes, Wellcentive's population health management technology is cloud-based, scalable, and customized to meet the needs of providers, health organizations and payers. Wellcentive's technology, insight and services help care teams measure and report performance and implement actionable workflow to drive value-based reimbursement and the transition from volume to value. Wellcentive has gained recognition as a leader in population health management in reports recently released by IDC Health, KLAS and Chilmark. Wellcentive aggregates data from more than 3,000 interfaces, and its solutions improve outcomes for over 30 million lives. For more information, visit www.wellcentive.com