News: CMS announces an initiative to reduce quality reporting burden

CMS Administrator Seema Verma announced a “Meaningful Measures” initiative to reduce the burden of quality reporting on healthcare providers, according to AHA News Now.

“The ultimate goal of Meaningful Measures is to direct efforts on high-priority areas,” Verma said in a CMS release, addressing the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network Fall Summit.

The agency is reviewing current quality measures across all programs to ensure measure sets are streamlined, including a review of CMS’ hospital star rating program, Verma said.

The American Hospital Association (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.

Only a few weeks ago, CMS announced that they would not be updating the hospital star ratings on Hospital Compare in October.

In addition, CMS launched an initiative to reduce regulatory burden, and is accepting comments through November 20 on a more flexible direction for its Innovation Center, a program which allows the agency to test reimbursement models that improve care, lower costs, and better align payment systems to support patient-centered practices.

In their decision, CMS cited a new AHA report that found non-clinical regulatory requirements cost providers nearly $39 billion a year and divert clinicians from patient care. “That’s a lot of provider time, money and resources focused on paperwork instead of patients,” Verma said.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in AHA News Now. To read about the AHA’s comments to CMS regarding the regulatory burden, click here. To read the CMS release regarding their new initiative, click here.