CMS: 4th quarter 2015 hospital quality reporting delayed until March

Hospitals will not be able to submit fourth-quarter 2015 data to the hospital inpatient and outpatient quality reporting programs until early to mid-March because the Health Care Quality Information System Data Center is being relocated, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports. “Although the [hospital quality reporting] programs will ultimately benefit from this change, the relocation will result in a delay in the anticipated CMS system release applicable to fourth-quarter 2015 discharges/encounters (including sepsis data and ICD-10 codes),” the agency said. Future updates on the system’s availability will be posted at www.qualitynet.org. CMS does not expect the relocation to affect access to the system for the February and May data submission deadlines.