PITTSBURGH, PA—August, 15, 2018—The Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) is working to prepare providers for the incoming reimbursement requirement changes set forth through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Quality Payment Program. The Oncology Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR), developed by ONS, is a CMS-approved reporting tool focused on improving care for patients with cancer. The Oncology QCDR allows healthcare providers to collect and assess patient data to provide real-time interventions that lead to better outcomes and ensure providers are adhering to CMS’s new quality payment program for practice reimbursement.
The Oncology QCDR offers a total of 13 performance measures that can be used with an institution’s electronic health record system or support manual data upload. Seven of the measures are custom QCDR measures developed based on ONS’s Putting Evidence Into Practice research to specifically provide performance data to improve the care given to patients with cancer; two are outcome measures addressing patient-reported outcomes. In addition, ONS prepared six measures that CMS selected for the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPs) program that address cross-cutting issues related to care coordination and patient safety for use by providers. Three of these MIPS measures are paper based and three are available in electronic format also.
With a subscription to the Oncology QCDR, providers are given daily reports for patients, identifying those who are considered “outliers” and in need of interventions for improvement. The Oncology QCDR not only reports on these patients, but also provides resources and actionable interventions to answer the question “How do I improve their care?”
As a MIPs-approved QCDR, the Oncology QCDR will support quality reporting—representing 60% of a providers MIPS score. It also provides improvement activities and advancing care information performance attestation with each of these areas that represents 15% and 25% of the MIPs score respectively. Providers should begin planning for data submission and the testing of data flow early in the process to maximize the completeness and accuracy of the data they report to CMS. The Oncology QCDR allows for this level of data quality checking prior to submission before the March 2018 reporting deadline.
Since this is the inaugural year of MIPs reporting, providers are allowed to enroll at a “Pick Your Pace” level when they begin reporting—without penalty—in order to test the way in which they submit data to CMS. The Oncology QCDR is able to accommodate all levels of participation, from partial reporting to full participation. For more information about the Oncology QCDR, contact ONS experts at research@ons.org.
ONS is a professional association of more than 39,000 members committed to promoting excellence in oncology nursing and the transformation of cancer care. Since 1975, ONS has provided a professional community for oncology nurses, developed evidence-based education programs and treatment information, and advocated for patient care, all in an effort to improve quality of life and outcomes for patients with cancer and their families. Learn more at www.ons.org.