Covisint Helps Maximize Payments to Physicians Through Easy PQRS Data Submissions
DETROIT -- Covisint, a Compuware (Nasdaq:CPWR) company, Monday announced that the company is now accepting PQRS (Physician Quality Reporting System) submissions at www.covisint.com/web/guest/healthcare/docsitepqri. The PQRS process enables physicians, physician practices and large healthcare systems to qualify for financial incentives by submitting specific data on Medicare Part B fee for services.
The Covisint DocSite solution was last year's leading PQRS reporting service with more than 5,600 successful submissions -- representing a 63 percent uptake from the previous year. More than 90 percent of last year's submitters plan to do so again this year, and 95 percent who submitted through Covisint last year plan to leverage the company's PQRS solution once again. Last year's submissions earned an average $2,000 per provider and $18,500 per practice.
The PQRS submission process -- formerly called PQRI -- has recently been updated, and Covisint has incorporated all the changes required for 2011 submissions while maintaining the portal's ease of use.
"Since the establishment of PQRS incentives in 2007, we have made it incredibly easy and cost-effective for physicians and other eligible practitioners to demonstrate that they meet the program's quality goals," said Brett Furst, Covisint vice president of healthcare. "As a result, we have dominated this category by processing more successful submissions than any other approved clinical registry. This broad and deep experience has allowed us to design our portal to offer an extremely efficient and intuitive process that minimizes the burden on practices and maximizes the financial benefits."
For 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) will pay eligible providers a financial incentive of one percent of their total allowed charges for care provided to Medicare Part B fee-for-service patients. Covisint provides a proven, easy-to-use submission process for all eligible providers ranging from single-physician practices to large, multi-specialty groups to hospitals and can accommodate both electronic and paper data collection methods.
Providers using the Covisint DocSite solution avoid workflow interruptions and productivity lags because the technology allows them to utilize data they already capture during patient encounters.
"Most practices already have all the data they need to qualify for the PQRS incentive, but may not realize how little time or effort is required to upload the data onto our user-friendly portal. As a result, they lose out on a substantial financial windfall," Furst added. "Non-participating practices not only stand to lose these funds and the 0.5 percent bonuses available from 2012 through 2014, but they also could be subject to payment penalties by 2015."
The Covisint DocSite service offers enterprise and web options in accordance with HIPAA standards so providers can select the method of data submission they prefer. Providers that used the portal last year do not need to re-register for the web application.
Covisint drives care coordination with its performance-based care solution -- a trusted health care platform that delivers actionable information at the point of care and manages secure communications across care communities. By enabling patient information to be harnessed, measured and securely shared at individual and population levels, performance-based care facilitates health IT at all stages -- from the most sophisticated HIE down to paper-based single providers. Benefits include improved care outcomes, lowered administrative costs, improved patient safety and communication among care teams, reduced avoidable readmissions and the improved ability to manage chronic conditions.
