This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
CMS drops four quality incentive program measures in proposed rule
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Four reporting measures in the ESRD Quality Incentive Program would be eliminated under a proposed rule released by CMS on July 11.
The four measures involve tracking health care personnel Influenza vaccinations, assessing pain levels in patients on dialysis, monitoring anemia and monitoring serum phosphorus levels. These would be eliminated based on CMS’s Meaningful Measures Initiative, which triggers an evaluation when “the cost associated with a measure outweighs the benefit of its continued use in the program,” the agency said in a press release. “The proposals to remove these measures are consistent with CMS’ commitment to using a smaller set of more meaningful measures. CMS is focusing on measures that provide opportunities to reduce both paperwork and reporting burden on providers and patient-centered outcome measures, rather than process measures.”
Dialysis facilities can see a reduction of up to 2% in Medicare reimbursement under the Quality Incentive Program (QIP) if the facilities do not reach a specified total performance score among a set of quality measures for patient care. The QIP is a 3-year process which includes a performance year, a data evaluation year and a payment (PY) year.
Other changes
CMS is also proposing to restructure the ESRD QIP’s domains and measure weights to align with the Meaningful Measures Initiative. If finalized, the ESRD QIP will score participating facilities in the four quality domains of patient and family engagement, care coordination, clinical care and safety.
In the proposed rule, CMS is also asking for feedback on new quality measures for PY 2022 (performance year 2020) and PY 2024 (performance year 2021). Two new measures for PY 2022 include measuring the percentage of prevalent patients waitlisted for a kidney transplant and reconciling medications for patients receiving care at dialysis facilities.
For PY 2024, CMS is proposing one new measure which is to standardize the first kidney transplant waitlist ratio for incident dialysis patients.
Comments on changes to the QIP are due by Sept. 10. Go to www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/07/19/2018-14986/medicare-program-end-stage-renal-disease-prospective-payment-system-payment-for-renal-dialysis for more information.
References:
www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2018-Fact-sheets-items/2018-07-11.html