Hospital quality reporting deadlines set

Healthcare Financial Management, March, 2004

To qualify for the full market basket update to PPS payments in FY05, hospitals must sign up with the quality improvement organizations' data warehouse by June 1, 2004, and transmit the required data by July 1, 2004, according to hospital data submission guidelines issued on January 28.

The data required are 10 quality measures related to heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia for patient discharges during the most recent quarter available. Hospitals that commit to the process but haven't completed the data submission by July 1 will be allowed a 30-day grace period to complete their submission.

"Aligning payment with superior quality is a major focus of this agency, and today's guidance is one important piece of that," said CMS acting administrator Dennis Smith. Section 501 of the Medicare Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 provides that hospitals that submit data get the full update, while those that don't will receive market basket minus 0.4 percent.

For more details about the Hospital Quality Initiative, visit the CMS web site at www.cms.hhs.gov/quality/ hospital.

See also "Data Trends" on page 120 of this issue of hfm.