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EW SHOW DAILY 42 ASCRS Symposia Tuesday, May 9, 2017 is successfully achieved. She also said to decide which measures you intend to report and know what ad- ditional data is required. Finally, Ms. Lindgren said to know or find out where you stand in software readi- ness and know what you can expect from your vendor moving forward. Mr. Killmer shared with attend- ees at the session interesting points about online scams and malware and how to protect yourself. He went through a number of examples of email scams, demonstrating dif- ferent typos, lingo, and other identi- fiers that are often used in malware. We all go to websites, he said, which are free. They're free because they serve us advertisements, he said. Ad- vertisements can have programs in them, and most ads are served by an advertising network. However, Mr. Killmer noted that an ad attacker can have certain groups of people targeted to receive a malicious ad. Mr. Killmer also shared some of the different layers of protection to try to stop malware from attacking a system. These include spam filters, firewalls, antivirus, next genera- tion firewalls, patch installation, application whitelisting, and web proxy whitelisting. He particularly highlighted application whitelisting, which he said is becoming more common. Though criminals are working on a way to circumvent it, Mr. Killmer said this is the opposite of an antivirus. Instead of maintain- ing a list of what's bad, it maintains a list of what's good, he said. When asked, Mr. Killmer listed his top three things to protect yourself against this malware. He said having strong and unique pass- words, educating employees, and ensuring you have good backups are all extremely important. EW Editors' note: The speakers have no financial interests related to their comments. by Ellen Stodola EyeWorld Senior Staff Writer and practice, and it included clinical quality measures. Meanwhile, the MIPS ACI category requires phy- sicians to report on four or five measures to achieve the base score, and they can score additional points toward a performance score with achievement on certain objectives and measures. The ACI category also maintains several objectives and measures beyond the control of the physician and practice. There are no clinical quality measures, and there is the option to report on fewer mea- sures in the first performance period, depending on the EHR certification year. She then went over the catego- ry score calculation. This includes a base score, which makes up 50 points of the total ACI performance category score; a performance score, which makes up to 90 points of the total ACI performance category score; and bonus points, which com- prise up to 15 points of the total ACI performance category score. In the ACI score structure, there are 155 total possible points, with providers needing 100 points, Ms. Madson said. In the base score, the four objectives are patient electronic access, protect health information, electronic prescribing, and health information exchange. The four objectives in the performance score are patient electronic access, health information exchange, coordination of care through patient engagement, and public health and clinical data registry reporting. Both Ms. Lindgren and Mr. Peterson discussed how to know if your vendor is prepared for MACRA. Ms. Lindgren first presented several questions to ask about your ven- dor to see if they are prepared. She summed up her points by stressing the importance to learn, plan, and ask questions. Study the rules, she said, and know how each program measure Ms. Madson spoke about the Medicare Access and CHIP Reautho- rization Act (MACRA), particularly highlighting the advancing care information (ACI) category of the merit-based incentive payment system (MIPS). The ACI category will comprise 25% of the composite MIPS score. Ms. Madson compared the ACI category to previous Meaningful Use. With Meaningful Use, you had to report on 10 objectives and measures and had to complete all to avoid a penalty, she said. Additional- ly, under Meaningful Use, there was a 90-day period in 2016, it included several objectives and measures beyond the control of the physician T his year's symposium spon- sored by the ASCRS•ASOA Health Information Tech- nology Committee high- lighted "Health IT Under MACRA: Winning Strategies to Help Your Practice Succeed." Moderator Candace Simerson, COE, Marana, Arizona, and speakers Charles Killmer, St. Cloud, Minne- sota, Allison Madson, ASCRS•ASOA manager of regulatory affairs, Fair- fax, Virginia, Scott Peterson, Lewis- burg, Pennsylvania, and Kristine Lindgren, Dallas, shared informa- tion on this topic with attendees. Information technology is be- coming more critical to our practice success every year, Ms. Simerson said. HIT symposium provides updates on MACRA, malware, and preparing your practice Mr. Killmer shares how to avoid online scams and how to protect against malware.

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