MACRA: Here’s what you need to know about the new Medicare pay reform law

As reported previously, Medicare's sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula for reimbursement was recently repealed by Congress and new Medicare physician payment reforms were put into effect in the measure, "Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015" (MACRA) Among other things, the new law provides for an annual 0.5 percent physician reimbursement increase in each of the years 2015 through 2019, and put into place new payment reforms.

The reform is a result of COA and other optometry advocates traveling to Washington, DC, where they met with elected officials urging them to scrap Medicare's flawed SGR formula. The new law creates a narrow pathway to higher Medicare payments, largely through a consolidated and expanded incentive program called the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). The measure’s sweeping quality-improvement section heavily focuses on the use of clinical data registries, such as AOA's MORE (Measures and Outcomes Registry for Eyecare).