March 2, 2021 5:05 pm CMS Relaxes MIPS Penalties Due to COVID-19 Public Health Emergency The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last week announced that it will hold providers eligible for the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) harmless from up to 9% of program penalties, due to the hardships of the COVID-19 public health emergency. CMS will automatically apply the Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Hardship Exception policy for all MIPS-eligible clinicians. For more details, click here. News & Knowledge All Curi recommendations are based on current CDC criteria at the time of publication. CDC guidance for SARS-CoV-2 infection may, or may not, be adopted by state and local health departments to respond to rapidly changing local circumstances. Providers should always check with their local health department to see if the CDC’s guidance on any given topic has been modified (particularly if more restrictive) from the CDC’s recommended guidelines. Follow this link https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/healthdirectories/index.html for contact information to your state/local health department. If local recommendations vary from those of the CDC, and you are unsure what recommendations to follow, then it is safer to follow the more restrictive guidelines/recommendations.