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Medicare News
Medicare Releases Quality Measures for Physician
Bonus Program
Physician Quality Reporting Initiative will include
74 measures
April 5, 2007 - The Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services took a big step forward this week in the 2007
Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, which will pay bonuses for
voluntary reporting, by publishing the detailed specifications for the
74 measures to be used.
PQRI establishes a financial incentive for
physicians and other health practitioners to participate in this
voluntary quality reporting program. Eligible professionals who
successfully report data for a designated set of quality measures may
earn a bonus payment, subject to a cap, of 1.5 percent of total allowed
charges for covered Medicare physician fee schedule services provided
during the reporting period of July 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007.
“CMS is committed to becoming an active purchaser
of high quality, efficient health care, and the PQRI program is an
important step in that transformation,” said CMS Acting Administrator
Leslie V. Norwalk.
The 2007 PQRI quality measures relate to important
processes of care that are linked to improved healthcare quality
outcomes. They are evidence- and consensus-based measures that reflect
the work of national organizations involved in quality measure
development, consensus endorsement, and adoption.
These include the American Medical Association
Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement, the National Committee
for Quality Assurance, the National Quality Forum, the AQA Alliance, and
other physician and non-physician professional organizations. The
professional organizations are also assisting CMS in providing PQRI
education and assistance to their members.
The specifications have been posted well in advance
of the statutory deadline of July 1, 2007. This is to help eligible
professionals to identify measures applicable to their practices and to
prepare for submission of quality data in advance of the July 1, 2007
start date of the program. CMS anticipates a small number of additional
specification changes, which may expand the applicability of the
measures to additional eligible professionals.
The PQRI measures apply to services that eligible
professionals provide to Medicare beneficiaries in their offices and
other settings. CMS is implementing an extensive outreach and education
plan to assist eligible professionals to understand the program and the
measures and to implement processes to efficiently capture the quality
data that is to be reported under the PQRI program.
For a list and the specifications of the measurements in Adobe pdf,
click here.
The measure specifications document and other
programmatic information can be found at the home page at
www.cms.gov/pqri/.
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