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Medicare takes step to ease physician quality reporting

Ambulatory Surgery Reimbursement Update, November 1, 2005

Medicare has created a program that will make it easier for physicians to participate in a voluntary quality of care program, according to a statement from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

The program created last week is called the Physician Voluntary Reporting Program. It begins in January 2006, with its first phase enabling physicians to voluntarily report to CMS information about the quality of care they provide to Medicare patients.

"Physicians are in the best position to know what can work best to improve their own practices and ultimately the quality of care available to all patients," said CMS Administrator Mark B. McClellan, MD, PhD

"Through these voluntary reports by physicians on evidence-based quality measures, we can take an important step together to help them improve care, and ultimately to help make sure that they are adequately compensated for that care," McClellan said.

Physicians who submit data will receive feedback from CMS about their level of performance based on submitted data. CMS hopes that this feedback will translate to an improvement in data accuracy, reporting rate, and clinical care, the statement said.

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