The Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) reporting mechanism was introduced for the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) beginning in 2014. A QCDR is a CMS-approved entity that collects medical and/or clinical data for the purpose of patient and disease tracking to foster improvement in the quality of care provided to patients. Individual eligible professionals (EPs) who satisfactorily participate in 2015 PQRS through a QCDR may avoid the 2017 -2.0 percent payment adjustment.1 Successful PQRS participation of >50 percent of your group’s EPs is also necessary to avoid an additional -4 percent penalty under the Value-Based Payment Modifier program.2
There are several important differences between the claims-based and QCDR reporting methods under the PQRS (Table 1).3 In contrast to both claims-based and traditional registry reporting, a QCDR is not limited to measures within PQRS. For the 2015 reporting year, a QCDR may submit a maximum of...
