Physicians and practices that want to fully participate in the 2017 Merit-Based Incentive Payment System must start their 90-day reporting period by Oct. 2. The reporting period applies to providers who want to:

• Avoid a MIPS penalty by completing an improvement activity; or
• Attempt a bonus.

Providers who only want to avoid a 2019 MIPS penalty for 2017 reporting have multiple ways to do so. To avoid a 2019 penalty only, you can also report just one quality measure for one patient in 2017. Learn more about how ophthalmologists can ensure zero 2019 penalties under MIPS. For questions about MIPS, contact mips@aao.org.

The Academy’s IRIS® Registry supports MIPS reporting for ophthalmologists who want to avoid a penalty or attempt a MIPS bonus this year.

• The new-user deadline to integrate your electronic health record system with the IRIS Registry for 2017 has passed.
• Practices that sign up by Oct. 31 can still use the IRIS Registry to manually input data for MIPS.

All ophthalmologists in a practice that participates in the IRIS Registry must be active Academy members.

If you plan to attend AAO 2017 in New Orleans, Nov. 11-14, onsite staff in the Academy Resource Center can help you to input an improvement activity into the MIPS dashboard. You will need to bring your IRIS Registry username and password.