News: CMS publishes quality measure impact report, calls for quality measures

CMS has released their latest impact report for quality measures, showing a decrease in heart attack mortality, unplanned readmissions, and uncontrolled diabetes.

Overall, the report shows an improvement for 60% of the measures analyzed, including the majority of the outcomes measures, according to CMS. Roughly 31% of the measures’ performance remained static, however.

CMS also surveyed the perception of the quality initiatives effectiveness and importance, finding that 92% of hospitals and 91% of nursing homes report that they consider CMS measures “clinically important,” the report says.

Similarly, 90% of hospitals and 83% of nursing homes said that performance on CMS quality measures reflects actual improvement in patient care.

Despite the somewhat rosy outlook, 30% hospitals also reported barriers in reporting quality measures. Some of their concerns, according to the report, include:

• Frequent updates to measure specifications and confusing measure definitions, creating additional reporting burdens for hospitals
• Internal EHR or information technology limitations
• Technical difficulties or issues with CMS tools
• Labor- and/or resource intensive reporting to CMS
• Issues with technical support from CMS
• Issues of capturing inaccurate data

Hospitals also reported some barriers for improving performance, including poor patient compliance, lack of physician engagement, lack of leadership support, and (most notably for CDI) poor documentation.

In addition to publishing the impact report, CMS also recently put out their annual call for new quality measures. The submitted measures will be considered for future years of the quality performance category in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

The call for measures, according to CMS, allows clinicians, professional associations, and medical societies representing eligible clinicians, researchers, consumer groups, and others to identify and submit recommendations in the following domains:

• Effective clinical care
• Patient safety
• Communication and care coordination
• Persons and caregiver-centered experience and outcomes
• Community and population health
• Efficiency and reducing costs

Those wishing to propose new measures for MIPS can do so until June 1 by visiting the CMS website. A list of proposed measures is also publicly available until June 1 on the same page. The finalized measures will be published no later than November 1, 2018.

Editor’s note: To read the CMS impact report on quality measures, click here. To read about submitting measure ideas to CMS, click here. To read about CMS’ study of quality reporting burdens and how to participate, click here. To read about the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s critique of MIPS, click here.