CMS Approves New Quality Reporting Measures for Physician Anesthesiologists

Physician anesthesiologists can now choose from 36 quality reporting measures when participating in the ASA QCDR, the American Society of Anesthesiologists® (ASA®) Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) approved two new Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) measures and 16 non-PQRS measures developed by ASA and its affiliated organization, Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI).

With the new quality reporting measures, physician anesthesiologists can report on items such as patient temperature management before, during and after surgery, timely administration of antibiotics, completion of surgical safety checklists prior to anesthesia, and pain assessment and follow-up of the patient.

CMS certified AQI’s National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry (NACOR) as a QCDR in 2014. The QCDR registry is called ASA QCDR. The registry is one of only 40 entities to achieve the designation, through which registry participants select performance measures aimed at improving patient care and safety. NACOR tracks patient and disease data to improve quality of care and reports physician performance. In the coming years, CMS will phase out claims-based reporting in favor of registry-based reporting, transferring responsibilities to registries like AQI’s NACOR.

Physician anesthesiologists who fail to satisfactorily report PQRS in 2015 will receive payment penalties of 2 percent in 2017 with an additional negative 2-4 percent Value-Based Payment Modifier (based upon practice size) assessed on their claims that year.