Now Available: 2020 CMS QRDA III Implementation Guide, Schematron, and Sample Files

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the 2020 CMS Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) III Implementation Guide (IG) along with the Schematron and Sample Files. The 2020 CMS QRDA III IG outlines requirements for eligible clinicians and eligible professionals to report electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs), improvement activities, and promoting interoperability measures for the calendar year 2020 performance period for these programs:

• Quality Payment Program: Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APMs)
• Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+)
• Medicaid Promoting Interoperability (PI)

The 2020 CMS QRDA III IG contains several high-level changes as compared with the 2019 CMS QRDA III IG:

• Changes to Performance Period Reporting:
  • Performance period reporting for the Quality and the Improvement Activities performance categories under MIPS is changed from either the individual measure/activity level or performance category level to performance category level only for the 2020 performance period.
  • Performance period reporting for the PI performance category and for CPC+ for the Quality performance category remain at the performance category level only.
  • Electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) have been updated for the 2020 performance period eCQMs that were published on May 13, 2019. Please note, measures will not be eligible for 2020 reporting unless and until they are proposed and finalized through notice-and-comment rulemaking for the applicable program.
• Changes to the CMS EHR Certification ID requirement:
  • CPC+ participants must include a CMS EHR Certification ID that represents the Certified EHR Technology (CEHRT) used by the CPC+ practice sites during the performance period.
  • The CMS EHR Certification ID is optional for the MIPS Quality performance category and remains required for the PI performance category.

Additional QRDA-Related Resources:

Additional QRDA-related resources, as well as current and past implementation guides, are found on the Electronic Clinical Quality Improvement (eCQI) Resource Center QRDA page. For questions related to this guidance, the QRDA IGs, Schematrons, or Sample Files, visit the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) Project Tracking System (Jira) QRDA project.