Now Available: Updated 2019 CMS QRDA III EP/Eligible Clinician IG Addendum

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released an updated addendum to the 2019 CMS Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Category III Implementation Guide (IG) for Eligible Clinicians and Eligible Professionals Programs to support Calendar Year (CY) 2019 electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM), Improvement Activity, and Promoting Interoperability reporting. The 2019 QRDA III IG and addendum provides technical instructions for reporting for these programs:

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

This latest addendum provides an update for the retroactive change to the Query of Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) measure based on the newly released FY 2020 Physician Fee Schedule Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). Based on the Promoting Interoperability category, the addendum reflects the Query of PDMP measure reporting metric change from a Numerator/Denominator measure to a Yes/No response. This change is retroactively applied to the 2019 performance period.

The addendum still includes an updated universal unique identifier (UUID) table to reflect the 2019 performance period eCQM specifications that occurred as a result of the CY 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule.

The addendum also still includes Improvement Activity identifiers and Promoting Interoperability Performance Category objectives and measure identifiers finalized by CMS for the MIPS CY 2019 performance period based on the CY 2019 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule released in November 2018. For 2019, MIPS eligible clinicians and groups are required to submit data for a full calendar year for the Quality performance category, a minimum of 90 continuous days for the Improvement Activities performance category, and a minimum of 90 continuous days for the Promoting Interoperability performance category.

QRDA-Related Resources:

Additional QRDA-related resources, as well as current and past IGs, are found on the Electronic Clinical Quality Improvement (eCQI) Resource Center QRDA page.

For questions related to the QRDA IGs and/or Schematrons visit the ONC Project Tracking System (Jira) QRDA project.

For questions related to Quality Payment Program/MIPS data submissions visit the Quality Payment Program website, contact by phone 1-866-288-8292, or email QPP@cms.hhs.gov.