Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule to promote consistent use of nationally standardized quality measures in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and to help identify gaps and health disparities among the millions of people enrolled in these programs. This rule proposes requirements for mandatory annual state reporting of three different quality measure sets: the Core Set of Children’s Health Care Quality Measures for Medicaid and CHIP; the behavioral health measures on the Core Set of Adult Health Care Quality Measures for Medicaid; and the Core Sets of Health Home Quality Measures for Medicaid. CMS is proposing that annual reporting guidance will include identification of the populations for which States must report the measures identified by the Secretary of HHS, including, but not limited to beneficiaries receiving services through Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics. CMS is also proposing that measures must be stratified by various elements including rural/urban status.
Comments are due by October 21.