Many aspects of CMS' annual proposed modifications to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, released in July, were warmly welcomed by health IT stakeholders, such as expanded Medicare reimbursement for telemedicine services.
The reception was not as warm for the electronic clinical quality measure specifications outlined in the proposal. Stakeholders worry there has not been enough time for vendors or providers to incorporate the eCQMs. "We do not believe the government has reached a sustainable, scalable process to develop rational eCQM specifications; nor has [the] industry had time to determine sensible workflow redesign processes to capture the discrete data elements needed for electronic CQMs," according to a joint letter to CMS from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems.
Like CHIME and AMDIS, HIMSS recommends CMS "allow adequate time for comprehensive testing and piloting of the measure specifications, as well as the certification process."
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