[Checklist]: How to Select a MIPS Value Pathways Vendor

Don't let a slick sales pitch fool you. Here are 10 tough questions to ask your MIPS Value Pathways vendor before you buy. Download the checklist now.

Shopping for a MIPS Value Pathways (MVP) vendor is probably right up there with paying your taxes and getting a root canal on your list of “things I look forward to.” But in the 2025 PFS Proposed Rule, CMS still giving the sign that traditional MIPS will be sunset after 2028, it’s absolutely critical that you use these next few years to 1) get your MVP program up and running and 2) find a vendor who can handle all of your MVP data collection and submissions requirements for you. (If you haven’t checked out our 5-year plan to MVP success, make sure to read that next.)

To help make your vendor selection process a little less painful, we’ve created this guide to the 10 essential questions you should ask your top picks before you sign on the dotted line. We’ve even created a free companion checklist that you can print out and take with you to every vendor interview.

But wait...is this just a Medisolv sales pitch?

We’ll admit that creating this guide and checklist is a bit self-serving. Of course we want to be your MIPS Value Pathways vendor of choice! But the truth is, we’ve worked with many healthcare organizations over the past 25+ years, and we’ve seen where others have gotten stuck (or even screwed) in choosing their quality improvement vendors. Our ultimate goal is to help you avoid the heartbreak of investing your time, money, and sweat equity into a less-than-perfect vendor relationship.

But wait...can’t I just manage my MIPS Values Pathways through my EHR?

Good question. Yes, managing your MVPs through your EHR is an option—but there’s one big caveat. CMS is requiring that, by 2025, any entities submitting on behalf of a client, under any of the reporting tracks within the Quality Payment Program (QPP) must be a qualified registry (QR) or qualified clinical data registry (QCDR). Unless you’re willing to put in the serious work it takes to become a QR or QCDR (which CMS outlines how to do here), it’s probably a better use of your time and resources to find a third-party vendor who’s already done the QR/QCDR heavy lifting for you.

So, now, without further ado, let the MIPS Value Pathways vendor interviews begin!

Question #1: Are you MVP-certified?

Why You Need to Ask This: If you’ve read the preceding paragraph, your first question should be obvious: Are you a certified QR or QCDR? But then your very next question should be: Are you certified to submit MVPs? A vendor is only permitted to submit an MVP on your behalf if it has first declared to CMS that it supports that pathway. These may seem like silly questions to ask, but you’ll waste a lot of time if you don’t vet every vendor for these two must-haves first.

Question #2: Which MVPs are you certified to support?

Why You Need to Ask This: This is an important point, so it bears repeating: a vendor is only able to submit the MVPs that it has officially declared to CMS. If, for example, you intend to submit under the Focusing on Women’s Health pathway, but your vendor does not have CMS’s rubber-stamp approval to support it, then you’re going to be left to your own devices come submissions time.

But CMS’s MVP-by-MVP certification requirement goes deeper than submissions. It’s actually an important checks-and-balances system designed to protect you, because it means that the vendor is certified to support each and every measure within its declared MVPs. If we look back at the Focusing on Women’s Health MVP, it alone offers 19 quality measures and 14 improvement activity measures for you to choose from. CMS certification ensures that your vendor can support whichever of those 36 measures work for you.

Question #3: What is your timeline for supporting additional MVPs? 

Why You Need to Ask This: The MVP framework is still so new, it would be impossible to expect any vendor to already be certified to support all of CMS’s current MVPs. But any vendor worth its salt will have a clear plan in place for getting there.

Use this question to find out which MVPs your vendor plans to add—and when—with an eye on one important deadline: 2026. That’s when subgroup reporting will be mandatory for any multispecialty practice that voluntarily elects to report MVPs that year.  

In other words, all the specialists within your practice will need to be assigned to a subgroup and reporting under that subgroup’s MVP by 2026. If, by that time, your vendor is not prepared to support you with a broad range of MVPs to match your mix of specialists, they’re probably not the right vendor for you.

Question #4: What’s your experience with eCQMs and CQMs?

Why You Need to Ask This: The MVP framework is a lot more work for you, for a lot of reasons. But one of the big ones is that it asks you to collect a variety of measure types, including eCQMs, CQMs, claims measures, and more.

The challenge is that many vendors only have experience with one type of measure—typically CQMs. You’ll need to be assured that your vendor is prepared to help you manage any type of measure—and not just at submission time, but from initial set-up to monitoring and process improvements. Which brings us to your next question...

Question #5: What does your customer support look like?

Why You Need to Ask This: Just like accountants who have clients they only talk to at tax time, many vendors are built on a customer support model focused on helping you get through submissions season, and not much else.

While that may have been perfectly sufficient under the MIPS framework, the MVP framework is simply too complex and labor-intensive for seasonal support. You’ll want to find a vendor who is willing to hold your hand through all of it.

To be more specific, ask them how they’ll help you use these next few years of voluntary MVP reporting to optimize your performance. A good vendor will be able to show you how you’ll be more than ready when traditional MIPS is officially sunset.

Question #6: What will you do if CMS rejects my data?

Why You Need to Ask This: Given just how new this program is, CMS rejecting your data is a pretty likely scenario—so you need to have a plan in place for fixing it. Find out upfront if you can count on your MIPS Value Pathways vendor to be a part of that plan, or if they’re going to leave you to sift through the rubble on your own. Get specific details on how they will help you troubleshoot and resubmit to keep your program on schedule.

Medisolv, for example, has a series of steps that we take to guide our clients along the entire submissions process, regardless of what reporting program or framework they’re following. We call it our SubmissionsPlus® Assurance. If your vendor doesn’t have something similar in place to help you troubleshoot your submission, just know that it’s going to take a lot of resources on your end to get across the MVP finish line.

Question #7: How do you handle EHR data extraction and aggregation?

Why You Need to Ask This: It depends on what your EHR setup looks like. If different aspects of your practice run on different EHRs, you’re going to want an MVP vendor who can help you aggregate and standardize your data on a regular basis—not just at submissions time. Consistent data reviews will be the only way to ensure that what you submit to CMS is an accurate reflection of your organization’s quality of care. And, more importantly, consistent data reviews are essential to quickly identifying and course-correcting gaps in your patient care, even when CMS is not looking.

But this question is important to ask even if your practice runs on one unified EHR (lucky you!). In general, many healthcare quality improvement vendors require you to hire a second, additional vendor just to extract your data before you can get up and running. That can make the process of implementing your new software even more painful and expensive than you had anticipated.

Bonus! What You Should Ask Your EHR Vendor: We highly recommend consulting with your EHR vendor(s) during this process as well. Some EHR vendors charge you a fee to access your data—and some even go so far as to charge you each time you bring down your data. Consider getting you EHR vendor and your potential MVP vendor on the phone together to understand the ground rules and potentially hidden fees upfront.

Question #8: What are your security protocols?

Why You Need to Ask This: Vendors are just as susceptible to security incidents as anyone else, and your protected health information (PHI) can be lost or leaked through them. Evaluate your MIPS Value Pathways vendor as an extension of your IT department and your security team. What security protocols do they have in place to protect your data? Make sure your IT department has had time to properly review those protocols.

Bonus! What You Should Ask Your IT Department: Most clients we bring on have an official security review document. You should know what your IT team requires up front and have realistic expectations of how long it takes to turn that around. You don’t want to get to the end of your vetting process and find out there’s a major security issue that derails the entire project.

Question #9: How much does it cost?

Why You Should Ask This: Well, obviously you were already going to ask this. But we want to help you be a more informed consumer by giving you a point of reference: ourselves. Our MIPS Value Pathways Package starts at $100,000 per year. This fee includes our Platform and product modules, unlimited client support and submission services. (Mandatory disclosure: this is not an official quote. 😊 You’ll need to contact us for complete pricing information.) Just knowing where Medisolv stands should be able to help you weed out any too-good-to-be-true offers.

You should also ask what it will cost you in terms of time and human resources to get your MIPS Value Pathways system up and running. Again, for point of reference, a Medisolv MVP system takes, on average, six months to fully implement. We’ve designed it so that it’s an easy-to-follow process on the client side, but it does require collaboration with your IT and quality teams to ensure the system is setup to meet your practice’s technical requirements, workflows, and quality improvement goals. Your team needs to go into this process with its eyes wide open.

Question #10: How will you help me improve the quality of our care?

Why You Need to Ask This: This is our version of the “why-do-you-want-to-work-here” interview question. Is your MIPS Value Pathways vendor as passionate about improving patient care as you are? Will they help you think big and guide you towards innovation? Or are they just there to help you dot the i’s and cross the t’s for CMS? At Medisolv we are proud to say that our average client’s QPP score is 96. Our commitment to helping our clients excel in these healthcare reporting programs is outlined in our Quality365® Approach. We help our clients work on improving quality performance 365 days of the year – not just at submission time.

Admittedly, this is a more touchy-feely question. But as you listen to your vendors’ responses, you’ll be surprised at how quickly your gut instincts kick in. You’ll know if your missions and cultures truly do align—or if it’s time to “swipe left” on this potential match.

Final thoughts: Protect yourself by asking the tough questions.

Choosing a software vendor is always a monumental decision. But choosing a MIPS Value Pathways vendor is even trickier because the program itself is untested and filled with unknowns.

So, here’s our final suggestion: don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. If you want a second, third, or fourth product demo, ask for it. If you want customer references, ask for them. And if Medisolv is lucky enough to be in your consideration set—first of all: thank you! we’re so excited for the opportunity to work with you!—and secondly, know that we’re always here to answer your questions. Even the really tough ones.

Get to know Medisolv’s MVP Reporting Package

Medisolv currently supports the following MVPs and we’re regularly adding more. Use our contact form to let us know which MVPs you’d like to see next, or to get help launching your practice’s MVP program.

1. Adopting Best Practices and Promoting Patient Safety within Emergency Medicine
   Emergency Medicine, Nurse practitioners, Physician assistants
2. Advancing Cancer Care
   Oncology, Hematology, Nurse practitioners, Physician assistants
3. Focusing on Women's Health
   Gynecology, Obstetrics, Urogynecology, Certified nurse-midwives, Nurse practitioners, Physician assistants
4. Value in Primary Care (Formerly Promoting Wellness and Optimizing Chronic Disease Management)
   Preventive medicine, Internal medicine, Family medicine, Geriatrics, Cardiology, Nurse practitioners, Physician assistants

Bonus! Free Education Alert

At Medisolv, helping quality leaders like you advance patient care is our true passion. We know there are a lot of great quality teams out there struggling to improve patient care—and that not every organization can afford a vendor like Medisolv.

So, we created our Medisolv Education Center to help you succeed—even if you’re not a Medisolv client. There, you’ll find a vast and ever-growing collection of FREE how-to articles, downloadable tools, and webinars that can help you stay up-to-date on the latest requirements.

Be sure to subscribe today to get our weekly education alerts. Then check out these other resources for a preview of the valuable free tools that await you:

• Tool: MVP Selection Worksheet: A Guide to Choosing Which MVP to Report
• Tool: The 2024 MVP Reporting Bundle
• Webinar Series: 2024 QPP Requirements