The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced relief for the clinicians, providers, and facilities participating in Medicare quality reporting programs including the 1.2 million clinicians in the Quality Payment Program in response to COVID-19.
Specifically, CMS announced it is granting exceptions from reporting requirements and extensions for clinicians and providers participating in Medicare quality reporting programs with respect to upcoming measure reporting and data submission for those programs.
For those programs with data submission deadlines in April and May 2020, submission of those data will be optional, based on the facility’s choice to report. In addition, no data reflecting services provided January 1, 2020 through June 30, 2020 will be used in CMS’s calculations for the Medicare quality reporting and value-based purchasing programs. This is being done to reduce the data collection and reporting burden on providers responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
CMS recognizes that quality measure data collection and reporting for services furnished during this time period may not be reflective of their true level of performance on measures such as cost, readmissions and patient experience during this time of emergency and seeks to hold organizations harmless for not submitting data during this period.
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More on this topic:
Fierce Healthcare: CMS lays out regulatory relief for value-based care programs amid COVID-19 pandemic – https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/cms-lays-out-exceptions-regulatory-relief-for-value-based-care-programs
Becker’s Hospital Review: CMS relaxes ASC, hospital outpatient quality reporting requirements due to COVID-19 – https://www.beckersasc.com/asc-quality-infection-control/cms-relaxes-asc-hospital-outpatient-quality-reporting-requirements-due-to-covid-19.html