NACOR approved as QR and QCDR for 2023 MIPS reporting
AQI's National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry (NACOR) was recently approved as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR), as well as a Qualified Registry (QR), by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This is the seventh year that NACOR has been approved as a QCDR by CMS, which allows physician anesthesiologists, qualified anesthesia providers, and other clinicians to report on quality measures that reflect their practices.
AQI posts 2023 QCDR measure specifications
CMS has approved AQI's QCDR measures for 2023. The book includes lists of:
- Measures CMS removed
- Changes to measure specifications from 2022 to 2023
- MIPS (QID) measures that are supported by AQI
If you have any questions, please email qra@asahq.org.
Attesting to Improvement Activities via NACOR
Clinicians can start attesting to 2022 Improvement Activities in the NACOR Dashboard if the practice is reporting as a group. A step-by-step tutorial on attesting to an IA in the NACOR dashboard is available here. For practices with multiple Tax ID Numbers (TIN), make sure the correct TIN is listed in the drop-down menu before attesting to the activity.
As participants of NACOR, practices can attest to activity IA_PSPA_1: Participation in an AHRQ-listed patient safety organization. This is a medium-weighted activity worth 10 points.
To earn full credit for the Improvement Activity Component, you must earn 40 points. Medium-weighted IAs are worth 10 points and high-weighted activities are worth 20 points. If the practice or clinician qualifies for a special status, these points may be doubled.
For more information, email askaqi@asahq.org.
Review your NACOR dashboard
Practices that have recently uploaded new data files should review the NACOR dashboard as it allows you to monitor your providers' performance, as well as pinpoint any problems with the data and make necessary corrections prior to data submission deadlines.
Data completeness requirements for the 2022 MIPS Performance Period are:
- Submit 12 months of data (January – December 2022).
- Report a minimum of six measures with at least one outcome or high priority measure.
- Measure must meet the 20-case minimum to be scored.
- Reporting rate must be at least 70% of all eligible cases across all payers for each measure reported.
Note: The minimum point threshold to avoid a negative payment adjustment has increased from 60 to 75 points for the 2022 performance year. It is important to check the measure performance rates for your practice to make sure the measures reported will earn the maximum points allowed for the Quality Component.
As a reminder, section 8 of the Addendum for Quality Reporting to the NACOR Participation Agreement states that your practice "and each EC agree, and Participant shall require each EC, to review his/her measure results in AQI at least four times a year and provide timely feedback to AQI on the measures that will be reported on the EC's behalf."
If there are questions about the dashboard results, submit a ticket to nacorsupport@asahq.org.
First MIPS reporting deadline January 31
The first 2022 MIPS reporting deadline is January 31, 2023. The following items are due to NACOR on this date:
- Data from January – November 2022. Practices are encouraged to upload data files prior to the deadline to allow time for review and to submit corrected files if any errors are identified.
- Attesting to 2022 Improvement Activities, including date ranges that the activities were performed.
- Reconciliation of provider lists ensuring all NPIs are assigned the proper provider type (MD-Anesthesia, CRNA, DO, AA, SRNA, Resident, etc.).
- Provider consents for clinicians reporting as individuals.
Email askaqi@asahq.org with any questions.