CMS to Improve Medicare Quality Payment Program

CMS has awarded seven organizations with cooperative agreements to partner with the agency and develop, improve, update, and expand quality measures for Medicare’s Quality Payment Program (QPP). 

The cooperative agreements are authorized under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) and are the first funding initiative that supports public-private efforts to develop measures for the QPP. 

In order to develop and implement measures that will improve patient care, CMS will work with organizations including clinical professional organizations and specialty societies, patient advocacy groups, educational institutions, independent research institutions, and health systems.

 “CMS looks forward to collaborating with these clinicians, patients, and other key stakeholders to identify quality measures that will meaningfully impact patient care,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma, MPH, said in a statement.

The partners of this new program will work to establish more appropriate measures for clinical specialties underrepresented in the current measure set. CMS hopes that these organizations will help improve patient care and focus on outcome measures that include patient-reported outcomes and functional-status measures, in order to better reflect what matters most to patients. Overall, the measures that are developed through this initiative will help shape Medicare’s QPP, which was established by CMS to implement certain MACRA provisions. 

Notably, this funding program aligns with the CMS Meaningful Measures structure that identifies high priorities for quality measurement and improvement. 

“Through our Meaningful Measures initiative, CMS is committed to advancing measures that minimize burden on clinicians, improve outcomes for patients, and drive high-quality care,” Ms Verma explained. “We need the expertise and firsthand experience of those on the front lines to develop measures that achieve these goals.”

—Julie Gould