New Deadline: Cost Measure Field Testing Feedback Collection Extended to Monday, November 5, 2018

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has extended the deadline for collecting feedback on the cost measures undergoing field testing to Monday, November 5, 2018, at 12:00pm ET.

As a reminder, CMS and its contractor, Acumen, LLC, are conducting field testing for 13 cost measures before consideration of their potential use in the cost performance category of the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) of the Quality Payment Program in 2020 or beyond. During field testing, all stakeholders are invited to provide feedback on the measures and supplemental documents. Participation in field testing is voluntary.

The following measures are being field tested:

Eleven New Episode-Based Cost Measures Currently under Development:

• Acute Kidney Injury Requiring New Inpatient Dialysis
• Femoral or Inguinal Hernia Repair
• Elective Primary Hip Arthroplasty
• Hemodialysis Access Creation
• Inpatient Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Exacerbation
• Lower Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage
• Lumbar Spine Fusion for Degenerative Disease, 1-3 Levels
• Lumpectomy, Partial Mastectomy, Simple Mastectomy
• Non-Emergent Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG)
• Psychoses/Related Conditions
• Renal or Ureteral Stone Surgical Treatment

Two Cost Measures Undergoing Re-evaluation:

• Total Per Capita Cost (TPCC)
• Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary (MSPB) clinician

Note: These are not the same measures currently in use for the 2017 and 2018 MIPS performance periods, and they will not affect any scoring or payment adjustments in MIPS.

Field Test Reports are available for download from the CMS Enterprise Portal. Draft measure specifications, mock Field Test Reports, and other supplemental documentation for the 13 measures are now publicly posted on the CMS MACRA Feedback page.

Please provide feedback through this online survey by 12:00 PM ET on November 5, 2018. Note that feedback received by the original deadline of this Wednesday, October 31, 2018,11:59pm ET will be processed and reviewed first as the Clinical Subcommittees and expert stakeholder workgroups consider measure refinements this fall. As such, stakeholders are encouraged to particularly share comments on the draft measure specifications for the cost measures being field tested by Wednesday, October 31.

All feedback received after the original deadline of October 31 but by November 5 may not be summarized for measure refinements this fall, but will be reviewed and summarized in a public summary report and taken into consideration for future measure development and re-evaluation. This may include general feedback about the field test reports and supplemental documentation