The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) requires CMS to develop quality measures that will apply to Medicare payments to physicians when new Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Medicare alternative payment model (APM) provisions go into effect (MIPS and APM payment adjustments begin in 2019). Pursuant to this mandate, CMS has released its draft plan for the development of these quality measures, highlighting known measurement and performance gaps and recommending approaches to close those gaps through development, use, and refinement of quality measures. The report also discusses the measure development principles that will guide the development of measures, the operational requirements of the quality measure development plan, and potential approaches to challenges in quality measure development (e.g., reducing the provider data collection burden and developing measures that promote shared responsibility across settings). CMS will accept comments on the draft plan through March 1, 2016. Background information is available on the CMS website.
This article is presented for informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice.
