Submitting CQM Data Electronically

You can now electronically submit your CQM data for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program.

The Physician Quality Reporting System (Physician Quality Reporting) is a reporting program for eligible professionals to report quality information to CMS. The CMS EHR Incentive program is a program for eligible professionals to adopt EHR technology in their practices. Clinical Quality Measures (CQMs) are required to meet meaningful use in the EHR Incentive program. Core measure #10 requires an EP to report ambulatory clinical quality measures to CMS or, in the case of Medicaid EPs, the States. To demonstrate meaningful use successfully eligible professionals must report on 6 total clinical quality measures: 3 required core measures, substituting alternate core measures where necessary. And 3 additional measures selected from a set of 38 clinical quality measures.

CMS reported in their EHR Incentive Programs Updates on July 19, 2012:

The Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Pilot allows eligible professionals to meet the clinical quality measure (CQM) reporting objective of meaningful use requirements for the EHR Incentive Program through electronic submission while also reporting for the PQRS program.

A provider who wishes to participate in the electronic reporting pilot must submit 12 months of clinical quality measures data. Eligible professionals must submit the data between January 1, 2013 and February 28, 2013.

CQM data for the electronic reporting pilot must be derived from certified EHR technology. If you decide to submit the data directly from your EHR, your EHR also needs to be PQRS “qualified.” You can also have a PQRS-qualified data submission vendor submit quality measures data for the electronic reporting pilot on your behalf.

A list of the 2012 PQRS-qualified EHR and data-submission vendors is posted on the PQRS website.

You can register for the electronic reporting pilot program while attesting for the EHR Incentive Program on the online registration page. Simply check “Yes” on the eReporting page as you go through the attestation process.