Michigan

Sites

Recruitment steps and funding opportunities for sites inside the state of Michigan provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan (BCBSM)

Recruitment

Steps

  1. Hospitals must review the ASPIRE Eligibility Requirements and Site Expectations
  2. Submit an application, hospitals should apply early in the year (January – April) to ensure they have enough time to complete recruitment steps
  3. Hospital IT will receive MPOG’s extract checking tool (File Checker) when they apply
  4. Hospital must partake in a meetings with the Coordinating Center 
  5. Hospital IT will send File Checker results to Coordinating Center by August 29, 2025
  6. ASPIRE will announce Cohort 8 Sites by mid-September 2025
  7. Hospital starts preparing for ASPIRE technical implementation September – December
  8. New sites will start technical implementation on January 1, 2026

File Checker Software

MPOG developed an extract checking tool (File Checker) to help assess a hospital’s technical readiness.  As soon as a Michigan site submits an application they will be sent File Checker. This application scans the data files intended for MPOG and validates if they adhere to the provided specification.  File Checker is a standalone application that can run on any Windows workstation and does not need the MPOG framework to be installed. This allows sites to get quick and accurate feedback on their extract development without the expense of server hardware or SQL Server licensing. All Michigan sites must submit the results of File Checker to the ASPIRE coordinating center by August 29, 2025 to be considered for recruitment for 2026 start, but we suggest sites turn in File Checker much earlier in the summer in order to allow time for techinal assistance.   

Intake Meetings

All hospitals that submit an application will participate in an intake meeting to review ASPIRE participation requirements. There will be two meetings, one with the clinical team which must include the Chair / Head of Practice, Quality Champion, PI, IT Champion, and the hospital Pay-for-Performance (P4P) Administrator. The second meeting will be with the technical team to review the requirements for onboarding.  

Funding

 

Eligible Michigan hospitals who successfully complete recruitment and are chosen as a new site by the coordinating center will receive funding from BCBSM to offset the costs of joining  MPOG, including:

    • Technical FTE
    • Clinical FTE 
    • Servers
    • Software
    • Professional Billing Fees

Technical

In the first year, Michigan hospitals will receive funding from BCBSM for servers, software, cost of obtaining professional fee billing reimbursement, and IT / clinical staff costs. Implementation takes a significant amount of technical resources and a hospital should plan to allocate 50% of a technical expert for six to nine months.

After the first year, hospitals will continue to receive yearly funding from BCBSM for technical resources. MPOG is an ongoing effort and will require continued technical support to assist with ad hoc issues, patches and software updates.

Anesthesiology Clinical Quality Reviewer (ACQR)

Sites will receive yearly funding for the ACQR. This role must be filled by a nurse with operating room experience who will assist both during the implementation phase as well as work with the QI Champion from the site to lead QI efforts. Funding for the ACQR is based on annual case volumes, see table below. 

Timeline

All new hospitals will officially start in January of the following year and should expect to receive their first payment from BCBSM in June. 

Although the official start is in January, new sites should be ready to start preparations for implementation in September, including kick-off meeting(s), purchasing servers, regulatory documentation, hiring an ACQR, and setting up weekly technical meetings starting in January. 

Primary / Secondary Sites

A hospital system with several hospitals on the same instance of an electronic health record (EHR) system are categorized as Primary or Secondary sites. The technical implementation costs will not double to add more hospitals but a hospital system will incur incremental costs for each additional hospital.  

Funding

Below is the overview of the available funding: 

Year One Estimated Reimbursements

Computer Equipment and SoftwarePrimary SiteSecondary Site
SQL Server 2012 local database and virtual machine$8,000$2,000
SQL Server 2012 Site license (if no site license available through your hospital)$5,000 or $0$0
Professional fee billing company reimbursement
(funds to obtain professional fee data from billing company)		$3,000$1,000
Site Hospital IT to deploy EHR interface$40,000$10,000
Total first year capital reimbursement$56,000 or $51,000$13,000

ACQRPrimary SiteSecondary Site
ACQR Tier 1: 0.4 FTE funded at 100%, based on 0 – 70,000 cases per year$35,000 – $45,000 $35,000 – $45,000
ACQR Tier 2: 0.8 FTE funded at 100%, based on 70,000+ cases per year$70,000 – $90,000$70,000 – $90,000


Estimated Ongoing Reimbursements – Year 2 and Beyond

Primary SiteSecondary Site
Operating
Hospital IT maintenance of data interface$8,000$2,000
ACQR
ACQR Tier 1: 0.4 FTE funded at 100%, based on 0 – 70,000 cases per year$35,000 – $45,000$35,000 – $45,000
ACQR Tier 2: 0.8 FTE funded at 100%, based on 70,000+ cases per year$70,000 – $90,000$70,000 – $90,000

For any inquiries please email

mpog-admin@med.umich.edu