CMS proposes changes related to participation in the merit-based incentive payment system or Advanced Alternative Payment Models tracks.

America’s Essential Hospitals encourages CMS to improve transparency, risk adjust, and reduce regulatory burden for essential hospitals.

Overall star ratings now will be released in October because of issues with data on three measures; hospitals can preview the ratings in July.

The update for the 2018 performance year aligns electronic clinical quality measure specifications with current clinical guidelines and code systems.

CMS updated the Hospital Compare website with new data, including health care–associated infections and HCAHPS survey data.

Hospitals have until May 5 to review overall Hospital Compare star rating and until May 10 to review value-based purchasing hospital-specific reports.

CMS has extended the deadline for submitting certain hospital quality data after receiving reports of system issues and inaccessibility with QualityNet.

Hospitals now have until March 13 — instead of Feb. 28 — to submit electronic clinical quality measure data from 2016 to CMS.

The changes, which reflect stakeholder feedback and the large volume of changes to ICD-10 in FY 2017, will be available on the National Library of Medicine’s Value Set Authority Center this month.

Hospitals can request an exemption from the electronic clinical quality measure reporting requirement in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program.

The agency released software that will help developers build applications for clinicians and their practices and make it easier for organizations to retrieve and maintain QPP measures using the Explore Measures section of the QPP website.

Of particular interest to members of America’s Essential Hospitals are changes to the Medicare Shared Savings Program and provisions related to telehealth.

The release comes after America’s Essential Hospitals and other hospital groups urged CMS to delay the ratings due to serious concerns with the methodology.

The rule, released July 7, updates physician payment rates for Medicare services and makes changes to physician quality programs.

America’s Essential Hospitals and other hospital groups urge CMS to continue to delay the public release of overall hospital quality star ratings, arguing that the rating methodology is opaque and flawed.