CMS Releases 2022 QPP Participation and Performance Data

CMS recently released national participation and performance data for the 2022 performance year of the QPP, including data related to MIPS and Alternative Payment Model (APM) participation.

Notable findings include:

• There were over 386,000 Qualifying APM Participants (QPs) in 2022, up from 333,658 in 2021. QPs are exempt from MIPS and have historically been eligible for a 5% APM incentive payment, which is a lump sum payment based on aggregate paid amounts for Medicare covered professional services furnished by the QP in the previous year. Note that this incentive payment drops to 3.5% in the 2023 performance year and drops further to 1.88% in the 2024 performance year. Starting with the 2025 performance year, QPs will receive a slightly higher annual Medicare Physician Fee Schedule conversion factor update compared to MIPS-eligible clinicians, although there are efforts in Congress to extend the expiring APM incentive payment.
• Mean and median MIPS performance scores were lower than in previous years.
• 14% of MIPS eligible clinicians received a penalty in 2024 based on 2022 performance, 37% received a positive adjustment, and 42% received an exceptional performance bonus. Note that 2022 was the last year participants could qualify for the exceptional performance bonus. MIPS payment adjustments are applied on a claim-by-claim basis to Medicare payments for covered professional services furnished by a MIPS eligible clinician.  The maximum penalty for 2024 based on 2022 performance was 9%, while the maximum positive adjustment was 8.26%.
  • Among cardiac electrophysiologists who were eligible to participate in MIPS, only about 10% received a penalty with the remainder receiving either a neutral or positive payment adjustment.

Additional information about 2022 participation/performance data and 2024 payment adjustments is available through the resources below:

• 2022 QPP Participation and Performance Results At-a-Glance: provides a snapshot of aggregated data, including a high-level overview of participation, scoring and payment adjustment information.
• 2022 QPP Experience Report: includes a more in-depth and specialty-focused review of aggregated data on participation, including top measures reported.
• 2022 QPP Public Use File (PUF): includes raw, clinician-level data on eligibility, measure level scoring, performance category scoring, final scores and payment adjustments.

Additional resources related to the 2022 PUF, as well as earlier PUFs, can be found on the new Participation and Performance Data page of the QPP website.