Omar Hussain, DO: How is MACRA Going to Affect Me?

For most doctors, MACRA, or the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, boils down to new language surrounding old practices. According to Omar Hussain, DO it's language that's important to understand - and quickly.

Hussain:

It's going to affect you in terms of what you have to keep track of on your daily outpatient basis. Most of these measures, for us, are outpatients. So you gotta track what you're doing, and it's usually through your electronic health records.

After you've tracked it, you figure out how you're doing on it has an effect on your bottom line through medicare. It can affect up to negative 4% if you choose to ignore it altogether. In 2019, you'll start getting negative 4% on all the bills you submit. If you submit anything right now - one patient, one measure in 2017, you at least stay neutral for 2019.

Then, if you start right now, starting to record data, collect it, submit it, then there's a chance you can get an increase in your medicare reimbursement for the same work you do right now.

A lot of us have already been in a MACRA-type world with different reporting, with PQRS, with meaningful use, and other quality measures. We're all kinda doing it. I just think MACRA kinda relabels some of it, and rehouses it in one place.

So, while getting to learn the language could be difficult - some of the words have changed - in all, the activity has stayed the same.

My own practice manager, who is doing a lot of help with data collection just came to that realization last week. She was like, "This is what I've been doing already. I'm already doing PQRS for 9 of you, I'm already doing meaningful use for 9 of you."

It's just the same thing, different words, different labels.