Quality Payment Program Small Practices Newsletter: February 2026
Quality Payment Program Small Practices Newsletter: February 2026
The Quality Payment Program (QPP) Small Practices Newsletter is a monthly resource that provides small practices (15 or fewer clinicians) with program updates, upcoming QPP milestones, and resources to support their continued participation and success in QPP, including the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). The newsletter is disseminated on the second Tuesday of each month.
Please share this newsletter with your fellow clinicians and practice staff and encourage them to signup to receive this monthly resource.
At-a-Glance: Required and Recommended Activities for Successful Participation in QPP
Each month, we share required and recommended activities for small practices to support their successful participation in QPP. The activities follow a rolling quarter approach, letting you see activities for the previous month, the current month, and the following month.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has opened data submission for the 2025 performance year of the Quality Payment Program (QPP). Data can be submitted and updated until March 31, 2026, 8 p.m. ET.
Submit your data for the 2025 performance year or review the data reported on your behalf by a third party. (You can’t correct errors in your data after the submission period, so it’s important to make sure the data submitted on your behalf is accurate.)
Submission resources have been uploaded to QPP Resource Library. Helpful resources for data submission include:
Enter your 10-digit National Provider Identifier (NPI) in the QPPParticipation Status Tool and review your final 2025 and preliminary 2026 MIPS eligibility status.
Your final 2025 MIPS eligibility status determines whether you need to submit the data you collected last year.
Your preliminary 2026 eligibility status informs whether you need to collect data this year.
This submission period for the 2026 Call for Improvement Activities is from February 1, 2026, through July 1, 2026. CMS encourages interested parties to submit proposed new activities and proposed modifications to existing activities, especially those that could be included in the new subcategory:
Advancing Health and Wellness
Improvement activities recommended for inclusion or modification should be submitted using the 2026 Improvement Activities Submission Template available on the QPPResource Library. The completed template should be sent to the email address: CMSCallforActivities@abtassoc.com. Interested parties will receive an email confirmation for their submission.
Improvement activities submitted between February 1, 2026 and July 1, 2026, will be considered for inclusion for the calendar year 2028 performance period, 2030 MIPS payment year. Improvement activities submitted after July 1, 2026, will be considered for inclusion in future years of the QPP.
We’ve published 2026 historical benchmarks for quality measures on the Benchmarks webpage of the QPP website. Benchmarks are the point of comparison used to score the measures you submit. Your performance on each measure is compared to its benchmark to determine how many points the measure can earn. Measures that can be scored against a benchmark generally earn between 1 and 10 points.
Measure scores aren’t based solely on the performance rate.
A high performance rate doesn’t necessarily mean a high measure score.
Measures earn points based on the score range (“decile”) your performance rate falls in according to the benchmark.
If you’re interested in reporting a MIPS Value Pathway (MVP), review the MVPs finalized for the 2026 performance year on the 2026 Explore MVPs webpage to determine if there’s an available MVP that’s applicable to your scope of care and practice. To report an MVP for the 2026 performance year, you’ll need to register between April 1 and November 30, 2026. As a reminder, the group participation option for 2026 MVP reporting is limited to small practices and groups with a single focus of care. You can learn more on the Individual, Group, and Subgroup Participation page of the QPP website.
The Explore Measures & Activities tool on the QPP website can help you get familiar with the available measures and activities for each performance category under traditional MIPS. TheExplore Measures & Activities toolhas been updated to include measures and activities for the 2026 performance year, with links to the individual specifications.
A resource is now available in the QPP Resource Library that outlines the steps small practices need to complete and submit electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) under the MIPS, whether participating as an individual, group, virtual group, subgroup, or APM Entity:
Share your feedback on what you like most about the Small Practices Newsletter, what can be improved, and/or what topics you would like to see addressed. Please include “Small Practices Newsletter” in the email subject line.
Contact the QPP Service Center by email at QPP@cms.hhs.gov, by creating a QPP Service Center ticket, or by phone at 1‑866‑288‑8292 (Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. ET).
To receive assistance more quickly, please consider calling during non-peak hours — before 10 a.m. ET and after 2 p.m. ET.
People who are deaf or hard of hearing can dial 711 to be connected to a Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) Communications Assistant.
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