CMS urged not to include two measures in inpatient psychiatric quality reporting

The AHA and four other national organizations representing members of the psychiatric-provider community this week urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services not to include in the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting program two measures recently supported by the Measure Applications Partnership. The two care transition measures (NQF #0647 and #0648) were developed by the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement and included in the Department of Health and Human Services’ list of measures under consideration. “We absolutely agree with the importance of effective care transitions in providing high-quality behavioral health care,” the organizations wrote. “However, we are concerned that NQF #0647 and #0648 overlap with the continuity of care measures currently in use in the IPF QR and Joint Commission programs. As a result, the addition of NQF #0647 and #0648 in the IPF QR would not address an unmet programmatic need, and could disrupt important improvement efforts that use data from the care continuity measures already in the IPF QR program. We urge CMS not to include NQF #0647 and #0648 in the IPF QR at this time.”