Astral Medical Services

MIPS Consulting Services for Healthcare Providers

Maximize your Quality Payment Program score and avoid Medicare penalties with expert MIPS and MACRA support.

Improve My Score
  • HIPAA-Compliant
  • U.S.-Based Experts
  • Free Practice Audit

Why MIPS and MACRA Compliance Affects Every Medicare Payment You Receive

The Merit-based Incentive Payment System, known as MIPS, determines whether your Medicare reimbursements go up or down each year. A strong score means bonus payments on top of your standard Medicare reimbursement. A weak score means a penalty that reduces every single Medicare payment your practice receives, sometimes for years after the reporting period.

Most practices either ignore MIPS reporting entirely, assuming it does not apply to them, or they submit data without a real strategy and end up leaving performance points on the table. Either approach costs money.

Astral Medical Billing provides MIPS consulting services and MACRA compliance support for medical practices across the USA. We help you understand your reporting requirements, choose the right measures, and submit data correctly so you maximize your score instead of guessing.

Our MIPS and MACRA Consulting Services

  • Measure Selection Strategy

    Not every quality measure is equally achievable for every practice. We analyze your practice data and clinical workflows to identify the measures where you are most likely to score well, rather than defaulting to generic measures that do not reflect your actual strengths.

  • Submission Support

    We handle the technical process of submitting your data to CMS through the Quality Payment Program, whether through a qualified registry or direct EHR integration. Submission errors are one of the most common reasons practices lose points they should have earned.

  • Performance Monitoring

    We provide quarterly dashboards showing where your score stands throughout the reporting year. This means no surprises at the end of the year and time to make adjustments if a category is underperforming.

  • Category-Specific Strategy

    MIPS scoring is broken into four weighted categories: Quality at 30 percent, Cost at 30 percent, Promoting Interoperability at 25 percent, and Improvement Activities at 15 percent. We build a strategy across all four categories rather than focusing only on the easiest one.

MIPS Categories We Manage

Quality30%

Clinical outcomes and patient safety measures.

Cost30%

Medicare spend per beneficiary (calculated by CMS).

Promoting Interoperability25%

Patient engagement and health info exchange.

Improvement Activities15%

Care coordination and patient access.

Understanding the MIPS Scoring Categories

Quality

This category measures clinical outcomes and patient safety based on specific measures you report. It carries the heaviest weight in your overall score.

Cost

CMS calculates this category automatically based on Medicare spending per beneficiary attributed to your practice. While you cannot directly report this category, certain practice patterns can influence the outcome, and we help you understand what factors are affecting your cost performance.

Promoting Interoperability

This category reflects how well your practice uses certified EHR technology for patient engagement and health information exchange, including things like patient portal usage and electronic prescribing.

Improvement Activities

This category rewards activities related to care coordination, patient safety, and expanded patient access. It is often the easiest category for smaller practices to score well in with the right documentation.

Frequently Asked Questions About MIPS Consulting Services

Eligibility depends on your Medicare billing volume and the number of Medicare patients you see. Some small practices fall below the low-volume threshold and are exempt. We review your specific situation to determine whether MIPS reporting applies to you and what your options are if you are near the threshold.

If you are required to report and do not, you will receive the maximum negative payment adjustment, which reduces every Medicare payment your practice receives for the corresponding payment year. This is the worst possible outcome and is entirely avoidable.

Your final score is a weighted combination of your performance across the four categories: Quality, Cost, Promoting Interoperability, and Improvement Activities. The exact weighting can shift slightly from year to year based on CMS rule updates.

Yes. Small practices often have an advantage in certain categories, particularly Improvement Activities, where documented care coordination efforts can be reported relatively easily compared to larger organizations with more complex reporting requirements.

Ideally at the start of the performance year. The earlier you select your measures and begin tracking performance, the more opportunity you have to make adjustments before the reporting deadline. Waiting until the end of the year significantly limits your options.

Yes. We manage the technical submission process through approved registries or EHR integration so your data is submitted accurately and on time.

Avoid the Penalty

Contact us to discuss your MIPS strategy for the current reporting year.