Gastroenterologists' experience with the 2007 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative: a demonstration project

摘要

In July 2007, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), a voluntary program that offers health care providers an incentive bonus to report quality measures related to medical practice. In its inaugural form, PQRI did not require compliance with quality measures. Rather, it was designed to reward practitioners who simply reported whether or not they evaluated patients for specific measures, denoted as "pay for reporting." The PQRI was established by the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, which reflected the U.S. government's desire to see improvements in the health care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries. This program was further evidence of a paradigm shift in how CMS thought of itself in terms of being a third-party payer. Replacing its historical function to passively pay for health care, CMS wanted to reward health care providers who make efforts to improve the quality of care they deliver, thereby gaining better value for every CMS dollar spent, a concept designated "value-based purchasing."