The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Monday announced it is encouraging physicians who participate in the Quality Payment Program (QPP) to contribute to scientific research regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Physicians may now earn credit in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) for participation in a clinical trial and reporting clinical information by attesting to the new COVID-19 Clinical Trials improvement activity. Doing so will provide vital data to help drive improvement in patient care and develop innovative best practices to manage the spread of COVID-19 within communities.

“[This] action encourages clinicians to report data that will help us monitor the spread of the virus, find innovative medical solutions, and unleash scientific discovery as we seek to overcome this terrible disease,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma, M.D.

In order to receive credit for the new MIPS COVID-19 Clinical Trials improvement activity, clinicians must attest that they participate in a COVID-19 clinical trial utilizing a drug or biological product to treat a patient with a COVID-19 infection and report their findings through a clinical data repository or clinical data registry for the duration of their study.  

The new improvement activity provides flexibility in the type of clinical trial, which could include the traditional double-blind placebo-controlled trial to an adaptive or pragmatic design that flexes to workflow and clinical practice. It also carries a high weight from a scoring perspective. This means that clinicians who report this activity will automatically earn half of the total credit needed to earn a maximum score in the MIPS improvement activities performance category, which counts as 15% of the MIPS final score.

To view a database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies currently being conducted on corona virus visit:  https://clinicaltrials.gov/