Patient-Centered Specialty Practice (PCSP) Recognition

What is NCQA PCSP Recognition?

The PCSP Recognition program builds on the success of the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition program by recognizing specialty practices that excel in delivering high-quality, patient-centered care. It focuses on proactive coordination and sharing information. Everyone in the practice works as a team to coordinate care with primary care, other referring clinicians, community resources and secondary services.

Practices are encouraged to organize care around patients and coordinate and track care over time. Specialty practices are required to organize care across all practices and patient visits—centering care on the patient, instead of on the care setting.

New Guidance: Modifications to Scoring for NCQA Recognition Program Evaluations

To help organizations navigate evolving federal and state guidance, NCQA has updated how we score diversity criteria for the following programs:

• PCMH (KM 09 and AR-KM 2).

• PCSP (KM 06 and AR-KM 2).

• Virtual Care Accreditation (EA 2, EA 5, EA 6).

Practices are now required to report on one driver of health outcome disparity (disability, veteran status, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.). Reporting on additional drivers is optional.  The selected data point must be collected directly during patient interactions. This change helps practices focus efforts while still identifying subpopulations with unique needs.

These changes are in effect for 2025 reporting and are reflected in the published 2026 Standards and Guidelines. Q-PASS scoring has been updated to reflect these changes for reporting in 2025.  If your practice is preparing to submit evidence, please ensure that the relevant documents are attached before submitting. Multiple reports are allowed, but only one is required. 

Please submit questions via My NCQA.