Profession
CMS at work on quality data reporting
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Oct. 24, 2005
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mark McClellan, MD, said at a House hearing in September that the agency is already at work setting up the infrastructure to allow physicians to report quality data, even though pay-for-performance legislation has not yet been enacted.
McClellan told the House Ways and Means Committee that CMS has 66 quality performance measures for 29 specialties, representing about 80% of Medicare spending. Not all of these measures have gone through the required voluntary consensus standards-setting process -- 36 for primary and outpatient-care physicians have gone through the process -- but McClellan said they are "still of great value."
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/10/24/prbf1024.htm.