Modern Healthcare July 12, 2019
The CMS won’t use performance on a smoking cessation measure it significantly changed as part of the Medicare Shared Savings Program for 2018 after strong opposition from accountable care organizations.
In a newsletter this week to ACOs, the CMS said ACO-17, a measure used to screen patients for tobacco use and then provide a cessation intervention for those who smoke, will only be counted as a pay-for-reporting measure instead of pay-for-performance measure to account for changes the agency made to it during the 2018 quality reporting period.
The agency said given the changes, “the measure does not have a valid benchmark that provides a true and accurate depiction of actual performance.”