10/21/2017    Ron Freireich, DPM

MedPAC Urges Repealing MIPS (Jeffrey Lehrman, DPM)

Thank you for your response Dr. Lehrman, however
you have completely missed the major point of my
posts. I appreciate the timeline of MACRA that
you spelled out, but my posts had nothing to do
with that. Regarding your comment about the time
I spent “crafting” my posts not making a
difference, you’re right, it didn’t because you
failed to even mention the MedPAC report in your
response which is what my posts were all about.

I never mentioned the lack of any medical
association, including APMA not speaking out or
lobbying against MACRA. That is in the past. My
posts had to do with the present, which is
MedPAC’s June, 2017 report to Congress
.
It was only six short months into MACRA when
MedPAC came out with their report which stated in
part“MIPS as presently designed is unlikely to
help beneficiaries choose clinicians, help
clinicians change practice patterns to improve
value or help the Medicare program reward
clinicians based on value,”.

I’m still shocked that there has been no response
that I know of, to the commission’s report from
any medical association. How much of tax payer’s
money went into creating the 2,398 pages of
MACRA, not to mention, the thousands of hours
that the APMA MACRA Task Force put into educating
its members and the hundreds of hours and money
physicians spent to implement MACRA into their
practices, only to have MedPAC recommend to
repeal and replace MACRA. Doesn't that anger you?

Regarding your recommendation to contact my
Representatives and Senators, that’s my point. A
response regarding this debacle should be much
bigger and come from our national associations,
not from a few individual members who will never
be seen or heard.

In your last paragraph, you state “Now that MACRA
is here” which is ironic because according to
MedPAC it shouldn’t be, you suggest some actions
I can take; however, I’m currently already
meeting all the measures through my EMR system.

Lastly, I do appreciate all that APMA does which
is why I have been a member for the past 30 years
and I do plan on contacting Dr. Deheer as you
suggested. Additionally, I don’t assume that
those who teach others about MACRA approve of it,
but I would assume that at least the members of
the APMA MACRA Task Force after all their time
and effort, if not the entire medical profession,
would demand some answers from Congress who voted
in favor of MACRA.

Ron Freireich, DPM Cleveland, OH

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