This content is excerpted from EyeNet’s MIPS 2021; also see the Academy’s MIPS hub page.
The biggest changes to the EHR-based performance category—promoting interoperability (PI)—are a new alternate measure and a new level of EHR certification.
New Health Information Exchange (HIE) measure. To get a score for PI in 2020, you had to perform (or claim exclusions for) two Support Electronic Referral Loops measures. You can still do that in 2021 (see Table: Promoting Interoperability at a Glance), but you also have the option of performing a new option instead—the HIE Bi-Directional Exchange measure.
If you successfully report this measure, and attest that you did so, the measure will contribute 40 points toward your PI score. As with all PI measures, make sure that you document proof of your measure performance.
CMS has said that clinicians can support their attestation for this measure with the following documentation: “Agreements with the organization providing them with health information exchange services; materials from the organization that provides their HIE services describing their services in a manner consistent with the attestation statements; or systems documentation from their EHR vendor describing their connection to the HIE.”
New certification for EHR systems. In 2021 and 2022, you can still perform PI measures using an EHR system that is a 2015-edition CEHRT, but you also have the option of using one that is a 2015-edition Cures Update CEHRT (see “Your EHR System Must Be a CEHRT”).
No plans to extend PI’s minimum performance period. In the early years of MIPS, CMS had said that it would eventually extend PI’s minimum performance period to the full calendar year. In the latest regulations, the agency announced that it has dropped those plans; this year, and in future performance years, the minimum performance period for PI is set at 90 consecutive days.
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