NCQA’S DIABETES PHYSICIAN RECOGNITION PROGRAM APPROVED BY MEDICARE PHYSICIAN QUALITY REPORTING INITIATIVE
Designation of program as PQRI registry reduces reporting burden for Recognized physicians
WASHINGTON—Physicians who have earned Recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) through the Diabetes Physician Recognition Program (DPRP) will have the opportunity to enjoy an extra benefit: they may opt to have NCQA submit their clinical quality data to Medicare for use in the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today designated the DPRP as a registry for quality reporting for the purposes of the PQRI.
Physicians participating in Medicare’s PQRI program receive financial rewards for collecting and reporting practice data about the quality of their care. In 2008, that reward is equal to 1.5 percent of each Medicare claim; in 2009 it will rise to 2 percent.
“The PQRI is a substantial effort on the part of Medicare to move towards rewarding physicians for providing top-quality care,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane. “Allowing physicians to use their DPRP data to satisfy the program’s reporting requirements allow doctors to spend less time preparing reports and more time doing what they love: caring for patients.”
The DPRP was created in 1997 through a partnership between NCQA and the American Diabetes Association. Today, more than 4,300 physicians currently hold NCQA Recognition for high-quality diabetes care. To qualify, physicians submit performance data on several dimensions of diabetes care, including eye exams, blood pressure tests, glucose levels and lipid control, among others. Patients with diabetes who receive care in accordance with these guidelines are less likely to suffer complications such as heart attacks, stroke, blindness, kidney disease and amputations.
Further details will be posted in the near future to the DPRP Web site at http://www.ncqa.org/dprp. A list of recognized physicians can be found at recognition.ncqa.org.
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations and recognizes physicians in key clinical areas. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA is committed to providing health care quality information through the Web, media and data licensing agreements in order to help consumers, employers and others make more informed health care choices.
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