Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Quintet of system strategies highlight federal improvement plan.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to work with you to achieve "transformational" health care quality improvements. CMS set out its goals  in its recently released "Quality Improvement Roadmap." The agency outlined five major system strategies and 12 actions to improve health care quality.
CMS will publish quality measurements and information, revise its provider payment systems to promote higher quality of care and encourage greater use of health information technology to reduce costs.

The roadmap also includes the following actions to improve quality:

• Expand CMS' promotion and public reporting of quality improvement measures;

• Create performance measurement systems that coincide with incentive-based payment systems;

• Make modifications to each major care setting's payment systems; and

• Develop agency-wide strategies to promote providers' use of covered preventative services and effective HIT.

To read CMS' roadmap, go to www.cms.hhs.gov/quality/quality%20roadmap.pdf.