CMS finalizes Medicare quality measures under consideration
CMS is considering new measures for nursing homes, hospitals, clinician practices, and dialysis facilities, among other settings.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released its list of 97 measures under consideration for quality reporting for inpatient, outpatient, long-term care and other services and programs such as Medicare Shared Savings and the merit-based incentive payment system.
[Also: NQF: Align Merit-Based Incentive Payment System with other federal programs]
"Ultimately, these measures may help patients and families choose the nursing home, hospital, or clinician that is best for them, and can help providers deliver the highest quality of care to their patients," according to a blog post written by Kate Goodrich, MD, director, Center for Clinical Standards & Quality for CMS.
CMS is considering new value-based purchasing measures for nursing homes, hospitals, clinician practices, and dialysis facilities, among other settings, and continues to focus on important measures of patient outcomes, appropriate use of diagnostics and services, cost, and patient safety.
[Also: Quality reporting costs doctors more than $15.4 billion year, Health Affairs says]
The annual list of quality and cost measures is done in collaboration with the National Quality Forum.
CMS posted the final measures under consideration on its website and has sent them to NQF in preparation for multi-stakeholder input from patients, clinicians, commercial payers and purchasers.
The measures may be viewed at: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Inst...
This year, 39 percent of measures on the list are outcome measures, and an increased number of measures were submitted for consideration by specialty societies, CMS said.
[Also: Hospitals to get $1.8 billion in 2017 bonuses for value-based purchasing, CMS says]
The Affordable Care Act requires the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a federal pre-rulemaking process for the selection of quality and efficiency measures used in various Medicare quality programs.
Twitter: @SusanJMorse
The list must be made available by December 1.
