The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule Friday, May 16, on 2015 standards for health insurance marketplaces (exchanges). In the rule, CMS finalized measures for a quality rating system (QRS) that would require health insurance issuers operating through the marketplaces to collect, validate, and report data on quality metrics for qualified health plans. America’s Essential Hospitals submitted comments to CMS in April and urged the agency to include appropriate measures that would protect vulnerable populations’ access to essential hospitals. CMS will publish additional technical guidance on the agency’s website and noted that it will continue to refine the QRS measure set as more useful measures for health plans become available.
Please contact Xiaoyi Huang, JD, director of policy, at xhuang@essentialhospitals.org or 202.585.0127 with questions.
