Physicians Allowed to Review Their Quality Data for Physician Compare

Starting October 5, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will facilitate a 30-day preview period for select Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) quality measures.  This preview period provides an opportunity for group practices and individual eligible professionals (EPs) to review their measures before they are publicly reported on Physician Compare.  The secured measure preview will be facilitated through the PQRS portal—Provider Quality Information Portal (PQIP). Please refer to the Guide to Measure Preview for instructions on previewing your measures.

CMS is currently in the process of rolling out measures for public display and has limited the number of measures, reported by physicians in 2014, to display. Anesthesiology measures that were available for reporting in 2014 (PQRS #30, PQRS #76 and PQRS #193) are not among those measures. However, CMS intends to expand applicable measures to include all reporting mechanisms (Qualified Clinical Data Registry, claims, qualified registry, EHR and GPRO) by the end of 2016. Among other requirements, CMS requires that measures on Physician Compare have a critical number of cases, are accurately understood and interpreted by consumers and have been reported for PQRS purposes for at least one year.

Physician Compare is a website maintained by CMS that helps assist Medicare patients in making informed decisions about their care by identifying and comparing healthcare professionals.  Patients can find out which physicians participate in certain quality programs, such as the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program.  Physician Compare’s downloadable database also contains a list of eligible professionals who participated in and satisfactorily reported quality measure information for the PQRS program. 

ASA has compiled a list of common questions related to Physician Compare, which can be located here. 

For more information on Physician Compare, visit the Physician Compare Initiative page. 

For additional information, please contact the ASA Department of Quality and Regulatory Affairs (QRA) at [email protected] or (202) 289-2222.