September 21, 2020

MHA Today is provided as a service to members of the Missouri Hospital Association. Additional information is available online at MHAnet.

In This Issue

CMS Announces ESRD And Radiation Oncology Innovation Payment Models
CMS Announces Availability Of eCQM 2020 Change Review Process
TJC Posts Specifications Manual Version 2020B3

What You Need To Know This Week

• The American Hospital Association’s United Against the Flu materials were sent out on Friday. Assets include flyers, posters and social media materials.

COVID-19 Updates

For the latest updates and most current information on coronavirus disease 2019, visit MHA’s website.

Regulatory News
the latest actions of agencies monitoring health care

CMS Announces ESRD And Radiation Oncology Innovation Payment Models

Staff Contact: Andrew Wheeler

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced two innovation models, the End Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices Model and the Radiation Oncology Model. Both are included in a recently published final rule on Medicare specialty care models to improve quality of care and reduce expenditures. MHA published an issue brief with additional details.

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Quality and Population Health

CMS Announces Availability Of eCQM 2020 Change Review Process

Staff Contact: Sherry Buschjost

Now available is the 2020 Change Review Process for electronic clinical quality measures. The CRP provides eCQM users the opportunity to review and comment on draft changes to the eCQM specifications and supporting resources under consideration by the measure steward. The goal of the CRP is for eCQM implementers to comment on the potential impact of draft changes to eCQMs so the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and measure stewards can make improvements to meet the CMS intent of minimizing provider and vendor burden in the collection, capture, calculation and reporting of eCQMs.

This latest installment of the CRP for eligible professional/eligible clinician and eligible hospital/critical access hospital issues will be conducted using the web-based public comment tools on the ONC Project Tracking System eCQM Issue Tracker during fall 2020. Note that an ONC Project Tracking System account is required to post a question or comment. New users can create an account via the ONC Project Tracking System website.

CRP updates regarding issues available for public comment will be posted on the ONC Project Tracking System eCQM Issue Tracker summary page. To subscribe to weekly CRP digest emails containing updates on CRP activities, email CRP@mathematica-mpr.com.

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TJC Posts Specifications Manual Version 2020B3

Staff Contact: Sherry Buschjost

The specifications manual for The Joint Commission National Quality Measures, version 2020B3, and associated release notes have been posted to the TJC website. This version contains updates to Appendix A (ICD 10 updates) effective Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020. Changes made to the manual are outlined in the release notes.

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Consider This …

Tomorrow is National Voter Registration Day. There are 51 million unregistered voters in the U.S., which is equivalent to the entire population of Spain.

Source: MHA/VotER