CEDR Engagement with Regulatory Authorities

Welcome to the early 2020 CEDR newsletter.  The member leaders of the CEDR Steering Committee and the staff at ACEP have been hard at work on many fronts to ensure that CEDR continues to provide value to ACEP members. 

In the prior newsletter, I commented on the theme of growth.  If you missed it, please take a look here. This time, I’d like to discuss how CEDR leadership is engaging with regulatory authorities and others.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):

ACEP and CEDR leadership have worked diligently to engage with CMS in an ongoing dialogue in an attempt to provide CMS with an understanding of ED processes and actively participate in new initiatives.  Occurring on a quarterly basis, these meetings have allowed us to share concerns of our membership with CMS as well as gain insight into where the quality measures process is heading .  Some recent discussions include:

• Bringing forward quality measure concepts and review of existing measures to ensure that we can maximize the value of the cost and effort in developing EM appropriate quality measures.
• Garnering support for the Emergency Care Quality Measures Consortium (see below).
• Ensuring that CEDR can continue to meet requirements as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) for MIPS submission. The requirements for maintaining status as a QCDR have become increasingly more stringent – which has led to the number of CMS approved QCDRs decreasing annually.  Ensuring that CEDR remains approved is vital to continuing to provide you with an avenue for MIPS submission.
• Participating in developing the next iteration of quality measurement. CMS is looking to evolve MIPS (Merit-based Incentive Payment System) to be applicable to all clinicians, regardless of practice size or specialty.  They are developing a new framework: the MIPS Value Pathways or MVPs.  ACEP has been invited to provide input into the MVP framework for EM.  This participation will hopefully guide development of measures that are meaningful to our members.

Emergency Care Quality Measures Consortium (ECQMC):

In the past year, ACEP has convened a coalition termed the ECQMC. 

The purpose of this group is two-fold:

(1) to improve the quality, safety, and transparency of emergency care by ensuring the development of meaningful measures designed to improve patient outcomes and reduce cost while (2) promoting quality measure alignment, reducing the burden of measurement, and avoiding the duplication of effort. 

The ECQMC is open to participation from physician groups, health insurance payors’ medical associations, and academic and research leaders.  The goal is to collaborate in the measure development process as a specialty as opposed to the duplicative effort of creating multiple similar measures that then need harmonization after development.  While in the early stages of formation, ensuring that the EM community has awareness of the ECQMC as well as feedback from CMS are two important tollgates in development. 

As you can see the collaboration of our staff and volunteer members working closely brings significant value to our members. Please do contact us if you have issues or wish to participate as a member. Thank you!