New Medicare MIPS Value Pathways Could Lower Radiologists' Payment Adjustments

Medicare’s move to MIPS Value Pathways in 2026 will block radiologists from using multispecialty group reporting, likely lowering their payment adjustments. Radiology-only MIPS reporters already averaged a 71.4 quality score, +0.14% adjustment, with 27.3% penalized.

• 68.1% of diagnostic radiologists currently rely on nonradiology measures reported through multispecialty groups, a strategy that MVPs will prohibit.
• Simulating the new 'ExRad' excessive radiation dose measure (Q494) increased estimated payment adjustments by 0.15–0.45 percentage points; at a score of 9, ~40% of penalized radiology-only reporters avoided a negative adjustment.
• Six of the 20 radiology quality measures had already topped out in 2023, offering little room for improvement.

Automated summary

RadPigeon summaries are original and for information only. They are not clinical advice.