NAACOS Convenes Process Pressure on Digital High quality Measurement
Will Generate Options and Coverage Suggestions
On April 11, 2022 the Nationwide Affiliation of ACOs (NAACOS) introduced it has launched a brand new activity drive, geared toward creating suggestions for methods to efficiently accumulate and electronically report on ACOs’ high quality of care by way of disparate well being data know-how (IT) programs. The Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies (CMS) has made it a aim to totally transfer to digital high quality measurement by 2025.
That aim stays elusive for ACOs, who typically work with dozens of digital well being report (EHR) programs and should mix knowledge from a myriad of medical doctors’ places of work, hospitals, and different suppliers not utilizing the identical EHR. Whereas CMS has delayed the transition to digital scientific high quality measures (eCQMs) till 2025, ACOs will want this time to develop options to the obstacles that at the moment exist to make a profitable transition.
“Our EHR programs as we speak haven’t but achieved the real-world interoperable state wanted to simply mix non-standardized affected person knowledge from varied suppliers, a future requirement of CMS’s high quality reporting for Medicare Shared Financial savings Program (MSSP) ACOs,” mentioned Katherine Schneider, MD, chair of the NAACOS Digital High quality Measurement Process Pressure and previous NAACOS board chair.
Along with value financial savings, ACOs are incentivized to show top quality of care on their assigned sufferers. ACOs are evaluated on numerous high quality measures, reminiscent of affected person expertise, the supply of flu vaccines, most cancers screenings, and diabetes management. Contributors within the MSSP, CMS’s largest and most profitable value-based care program, acquired a mean high quality rating of 97.8 p.c in 2020, a brand new program greatest.
The NAACOS Digital High quality Measurement Process Pressure will convene ACO leaders and different consultants to establish present capabilities and obstacles, serving to generate potential options and proposals that will probably be printed in a coverage paper later this yr. It is going to then collect stakeholders, together with CMS, the Workplace of the Nationwide Coordinator for Well being IT (ONC), and well being IT distributors, to debate and react to the coverage suggestions.
“ACOs have broader considerations in regards to the eCQM program as at the moment constructed, particularly many unintended implications and penalties of mandating knowledge reporting on complete affected person populations as an alternative of simply the MSSP as has been achieved since program inception a decade in the past,” Schneider mentioned. “Nonetheless, we all know digital high quality reporting on the whole is the route we have to transfer in, however we have to get it proper, finally for the good thing about the momentum of value-based care and for sufferers, together with these cared for by security internet suppliers. As of as we speak, digital high quality reporting presents main monetary and operational challenges, requiring important funding by distributors, practices, and ACOs for readiness in keeping with the present timeline.”
In accordance with a NAACOS survey final yr, greater than three-quarters of ACOs have six or extra EHRs, and 37 p.c have 15 or extra EHRs. Many depend on third-party corporations to assist them combination knowledge, including to the price of their work.
Members of the duty drive embrace:
- Maria Alexander, Mount Sinai
- Jim Barr, MD, Atlantic ACO
- Lindsey Bryan, The Ohio State Well being ACO
- Paula Burleson, Novant Well being
- Aaron Clark, DO, The Ohio State Well being ACO
- Rob Fields, MD, Mount Sinai
- Chris Elfner, Bellin Well being Companions ACO
- Josh Israel, MD, Aledade
- Jessica Landin, Evolent Well being
- Stephen Nuckolls, Costal Carolina High quality Care
- Ashish Parikh, MD, Summit Well being
- Megan Reyna, Advocate Aurora Well being
- Anna Taylor, MultiCare Related Care
- Jessica Walradt, Northwestern Medication
About NAACOS. The Nationwide Affiliation of ACOs (NAACOS) represents greater than 12 million beneficiary lives by way of a whole lot of organizations taking part in inhabitants health-focused cost and supply fashions in Medicare, Medicaid, and industrial insurance coverage. Fashions embrace the Medicare Shared Financial savings Program (MSSP), International and Skilled Direct Contracting, ACO REACH, and different cost fashions supported by a myriad of economic well being plans and Medicare Benefit. NAACOS is a member-led and member-owned nonprofit group that works to enhance high quality of care, outcomes, and healthcare value effectivity.
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