CMS announces initiative to reduce quality reporting burden

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma today announced a “Meaningful Measures” initiative to reduce the burden of quality reporting on health care providers. “The ultimate goal of Meaningful Measures is to direct efforts on high-priority areas,” Verma said, addressing the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network Fall Summit. She said the agency is reviewing current quality measures across all programs to ensure that measure sets are streamlined. “This includes a review of the Hospital Star Rating program,” Verma said. AHA has urged CMS to align quality reporting across all its programs and focus on “measures that matter,” and to suspend and explore alternative approaches to the star ratings. CMS last week launched an initiative to reduce regulatory burden, and is accepting comments through Nov. 20 on a more flexible direction for its Innovation Center. Citing a new AHA report that found non-clinical regulatory requirements cost providers nearly $39 billion a year and divert clinicians from patient care, Verma told Summit participants, “That’s a lot of provider time, money and resources focused on paperwork instead of patients.”