HASA Receives CMS Approval as a MACRA Qualified Registry

A Texas health information exchange, Healthcare Access San Antonio (HASA), has recently got approval from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to serve as a qualified registry capable of assisting physicians and eligible healthcare providers with fulfilling reporting requirements under MACRA for Medicare payments.

HASA has become one of the first HIEs in the nation to earn this distinction from CMS due to this approval.
Qualified registries, entities provided permission from CMS to help doctors in aggregating and reporting clinical information, are one mechanism by which eligible providers can report data under the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) — one of 2 payment tracks part of the QPP (Quality Payment Program).
Eligible clinicians can also report information to CMS, apart from qualified registries, through the online attestation system, EHR technology, administrative claims, and quality clinical data registries.
With the push of healthcare industry to transition from a volume- to value-based care, ensuring the availability of quality registries is a primary step toward permitting for efficient reporting to CMS in compliance with MACRA and MIPS.
Providers can be assisted by HASA both by securing consolidated patient health data from various different clinics and hospitals into a single electronic health record and submitting reports for eligible providers by utilizing a suite of reports.
Provided the particular characteristics of most practices in Texas, HASA selected to establish reports best suited to aid eligible clinicians in fulfilling reporting requirements.
 Executive Director for HASA Gijs van Oort said, “When researching the federal requirements, we learned that small practices, which are in fact, the majority of practices in Texas, were hoped to be most negatively affected by these new measures.”
Extending its services to involve helping eligible providers in meeting reporting requirements was an organic decision for the HIE, which sees the time-consuming procedure of meeting reporting requirements as an unimportant burden to providers who could more meaningfully be spending that time with patients.
 “Since we gather patient information and give community reports, it made sense for us to establish a suite of services that can relieve the burden from the practice of physician. CMS’ approval to report on behalf of a practice is a critical component of that,” van Oort stated.
With HIT (health information technology) services and a suite of reports available to deal the specific uncertainties of smaller practices, HASA expects to address provider concerns regarding MACRA implementation and assist these practices feel as prepared to meet requirements as their larger counterparts.
"Quality measures of reporting providers to CMS at the end of the year have restricted value unless we also give tools and technology to assist providers improves their quality of car,” van Oort added.
While helping providers via meeting MACRA reporting requirements on their behalf will reduce the administrative burden, it’ll also make better the overall patient care by permitting eligible providers to concentrated less attention on worrying over federal requirements and more time delivering care.
Medical Advisor to HASA Vince Fonseca, MD said, "We’re building extra support to help providers in improving patient health outcomes. This also results in more favorable outcome for the provider under the new CMS’ MACRA program."
MU (Meaningful use) requirements showed a struggle for eligible providers in the past, and healthcare agencies and policymakers alike are willing to make the transition to MACRA as smooth as possible to ignore problems similar to the payment penalties of years past.
Assisting providers streamline health data exchange across the care continuum sustains to be the primary goal of Texas HIE.
HASA Information Office Phil Beckett said, “We integrate our analytics, care coordination and patient-portal technologies to conveniently fit into a physician’s office workflow for handling quality measures. We’re in the final stages of development and the program is slated to be available to clinicians in the late Spring.”