Article
What CMS announced
On Aug. 12, CMS issued an advisory, published in the Federal Register on Aug. 13, about the 2026 alternative payment model incentive payment. The bonus goes to clinicians who reached Qualifying APM Participant status during the 2024 performance period. For this payment year, it equals 1.88% of their 2025 Medicare Part B paid amounts for covered professional services.
After processing the payments, CMS found that it could not identify a taxpayer identification number for some eligible clinicians, so it could not send the money. CMS compiled a list of these clinicians and asked them, or anyone who expected a payment and did not receive one, to submit updated billing information.
The deadline
CMS must receive the information by Oct. 13. After that, any claim to this payment is forfeited, and CMS will not accept requests for review or reprocessing. The notice also says CMS will not alert clinicians if a payment runs into a processing problem, so the burden falls on clinicians and their organizations to check.
Updates go through the CMS page titled 2026 QP Notice for APM Incentive Payment. If banking details have changed in the past year, CMS also needs a voided check and Form 588.
Why health systems should care
Many clinicians who qualified through accountable care organizations and other advanced models work for hospitals and health systems, and the bonus is often paid to the group’s tax ID. Physicians move between groups, practices are acquired and tax IDs change, and those are exactly the cases in which CMS may be unable to match a payment to an active TIN.
The rate is down from 3.5% last year, but across a large medical group it can add up, and the money may already be counted in physician compensation or ACO distribution models.
Steps to take
- Reconcile the list. Compare expected payments for each qualifying clinician against what has been received.
- Check recent changes. Focus on clinicians who joined, left or changed tax IDs since 2024, and on acquired practices.
- Coordinate with partners. Ask ACO and model entities whether any of your clinicians appear on the CMS list.
- Fix the process. Make sure Medicare enrollment updates are part of every physician onboarding, transfer and practice acquisition.
Archive entry for Aug 19, 2026, added Nov. 11, 2026.