This was a lecture from the ASA national meeting.
Ready or not, physician anesthesiologists need to start recording and sending their clinical data to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in 2015 to be reimbursed for their services by Medicare, Medicaid and other payers. The Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI) stands ready to help them meet CMS requirements.
The role of AQI and how physician anesthesiologists can use it to transmit data into a registry were reviewed Sunday in “PQRS Reporting Via the QCDR Reporting Channel.” Ultimately, though, “You are going to have to figure it out,” Richard Dutton, M.D., M.B.A., AQI Executive Director, told attendees.
The Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) uses a combination of incentive payments and payment adjustments to promote reporting of quality information by eligible professionals. CMS has designated AQI and its National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry (NACOR) as the Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) for anesthesia so that physician anesthesiologists can use NACOR for their PQRS reporting.
Participating in NACOR is free to ASA members, but there also are additional charges to have clinical data sent to PQRS for reimbursement. More information is available at the AQI website, Dr. Dutton said.
Besides being used for reimbursement, clinical data stored in NACOR also will be used to identify knowledge and performance gaps, and establish a baseline to measure quality performance.
Matthew T. Popovich, Ph.D., ASA Quality Specialist, reviewed PQRS reporting requirements. Eligible professionals must report at least nine PQRS measures covering at least three National Quality Strategy (NQS) domains to qualify for an incentive payment for 50 percent of Medicare Part B patients for whom the measure applies.
ASA’s Committee on Performance and Outcome Measurement is working to develop more outcome measures that cover many of the services provided by physician anesthesiologists. AQI expects to have 25-30 measures ready for use in 2015.|
To learn more about the PQRS system, visit the CMS PQRS website.
Lance Mueller, AQI Director, explained how ASA partners with AQI so physician anesthesiologists can participate in NACOR and the benefits of using a QCDR to report data. Those not participating should contact ASA to enroll in its QCDR services. More information is available at www.asahq.org/qcdr.