Making Merit-Based Payment Meaningful: The Next Step in Healthcare Quality Measurement

In a value-based care system, the measures that determine the level of payment must accurately reflect the quality of care delivered, produce comparable and consistent results against the measure’s intent and be actionable to drive care improvement. In addition, quality measures must support the Quadruple Aim: improve health outcomes, improve patient experience, decrease clinician burnout and lower healthcare costs.

While all currently available methods of measurement have limitations, the accuracy of and the ability to report measures across the U.S. are best supported by capturing the actual clinical data elements in digital quality measures (dQMs) that can validly, reliably and efficiently determine the extent to which a quality goal was met. Against a backdrop of comments and some pushback from healthcare stakeholders, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) continued to ramp up preparations for a major change in the way quality is measured in the United States; the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Value Pathways (MVPs).

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