News Update from CMS on CQM Reporting Pilot

August 8, 2012 – CMS announced that details about the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program 2012 Reporting Pilot for Eligible Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) have been published and are available on the QualityNet website. The Medicare EHR Incentive Program 2012 Reporting Pilot provides Eligible Hospitals and CAHs with an opportunity to meet the Stage 1 clinical quality measure (CQM) requirements of the Medicare EHR Incentive Program through electronic submission of CQM data.

The EHR Incentive Program 2012 Reporting Pilot is a voluntary electronic reporting option to satisfy the Clinical Quality Measures (CQM) objective for the EHR Incentive Program. Participation in the EHR 2012 Reporting Pilot is highly encouraged and allows hospitals an opportunity to pioneer efforts for submitting CQMs electronically.

Eligible Hospitals and CAHs must submit a full year of CQM data in order to meet the CQM requirements for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program 2012 Reporting Pilot. The reporting period to submit this data opens on October 1, 2012, and closes on November 30, 2012. A test database became available on July 1, 2012 to accept test files for the Stage 1 CQMs. The database is also available through the QualityNet website.

[Related Article: Meaningful Use Participation May Reduce Hospital Readmission Penalties]

Pilot participants who successfully meet all other meaningful use requirements will receive EHR incentive payments following the verification of the CQM data.

Eligible Hospitals and CAHs may satisfy the CQM reporting requirement in several ways:

1. Attest, using the attestation tool provided by CMS to report CQMs.
2. Submit Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Category I data during the submission period for episodes of care occurring in federal Fiscal Year 2012. For each of the 15 CQMs, all Medicare patients for the applicable EHR reporting period must be successfully submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) data warehouse via MyQualityNet. A declaration of zero (0) patients for measures in which no patients were seen must be made in QualityNet, if applicable.
3. Both attest and submit CQMs electronically through the pilot. NOTE: If this option is elected, payment will be based on the attestation results.

If you have questions or are interested in participating please call the QualityNet helpline at (866) 288-8912 TTY: (877) 715-6222. To learn more about the pilot, please visit the QualityNet website.