MIPS Value Pathways

MIPS Value Pathways (MVPs)

MIPS Value Pathways (MVPs) is an additional Medicare Quality Payment Program (QPP) participation track that came available in 2023, and offers a reporting option aside from the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APMs). This option is meant to reduce reporting burden, encourage meaningful participation, and improve patient outcomes. MVPs are an optional way to meet MIPS reporting requirements beginning with the 2023 performance year.

MIPS Value Pathways (MVPs) are designed to align measures and activities from the four MIPS performance categories. The new framework is intended to allow MVP participants to report on a smaller subset of measures and activities (within the measures and activities available for traditional MIPS) that are relevant to a specialty, clinical condition, patient population, or episode of care and are more meaningful to a clinician's practice, specialty, or public health priority. Reporting requirements include the same four performance categories that MIPS has always included, plus a foundational layer of promoting interoperability and population health measures. New measures and activities will be proposed through future rulemaking and finalized via the annual Physician Fee Schedule. The timeline for sunsetting traditional MIPS has not been finalized, but MVP reporting will become mandatory at some point in the future.

Finalized MVPs Policy:

The finalized policies, measures, and activities for each year are published in the annual Physician Fee Schedule and on the CMS QPP website (select the appropriate year). On the website, select the year and medical specialty to find the MVPs available for reporting for that year.

Who Can Report:

Individual clinicians - Select this option to register a single clinician to report an MVP. You can register to report an MVP as an individual in addition to reporting an MVP as part of a group
Group - Select this option to register to report one MVP as a group, on behalf of all the clinicians in your practice. You can register as a group in addition to registering individual clinicians or a subset of clinicians to report a different MVP.
Subgroups - Select this option to register a subset - some but not all - of the clinicians within your practice to report one MVP as a subgroup. Recommended for multispecialty groups to allow for reporting of more than one MVP based on clinical relevance. Subgroup participation will be required for multispecialty practices wishing to report MVPs beginning in the 2026 performance year.
APM entity - Select this option to register as an APM Entity to report an MVP.

Reporting Requirements:

Quality - Participants will select four quality measures available, including one outcome high-priority measure if an outcome measure is unavailable or applicable. The 4 required quality measures don’t include the required population health measures evaluated as part of the foundational layer.
Improvement Activities - Participants will select two medium-weighted improvement activities, or one high-weighted improvement activity, or a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) improvement activity if participating in a PCMH.
Cost - participants performance will be calculated exclusively on the cost measures that are included in the selected MVP using administrative claims data.
Foundation Layer (MVP Agnostic) - The foundational layer has 2 components:
- Promoting Interoperability (PI) - Participants will report on the same PI measures required under traditional MIPS unless they qualified for automatic reweighting or had an approved hardship exception.
- Population Health Measures - Participants select 1 population health measure to be scored on at the time of MVP registration. The results are added to the quality performance category score.

Scoring:

Participants will receive a final score based on the same performance category weights used in traditional MIPS, and the same performance category weight redistribution policies apply. Review our MIPS Step-By-Step Guide for scoring and weighting.

MVP Registration:

To register to report an MVP, sign in to the QPP website with your Health Care Quality Information System (HCQIS) Access Roles and Profile system (HARP) account. The 2024 MVP Registration Guide provides detailed steps on how to complete the registration process and contains frequently asked questions.

You can only register for an MVP during the 2024 MVP Registration Window April 1 - December 2, 2024.
If reporting Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) for MIPS Survey as a measure in your selected MVP, you’ll need to complete both your MVP and CAHPS for MIPS Survey registrations by July 1, 2024.
Participants must also select the one population health measure they intend to report, and any outcomes-based administrative claims measure on which they intend to be scored.
Changes to the registration cannot be made after the registration deadline, and reporting may not be submitted for any MVPs for which the participant did not register.
You do not have to report an MVP even if registered and may instead report via traditional MIPS. As a reminder, the subgroup participation option is only available for MVP reporting; MIPS eligible clinicians that registered to report as a subgroup would need to report traditional MIPS or the APP as individuals, as a group or as an APM Entity (if applicable) if they don’t report the MVP.