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Physicians Quality Report Initiative (PQRI) Starts Soon
HyperCereus Medical adds PQRI to online tools and data sets

On July 1, 2007, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will launch the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) - a voluntary reporting program that encourages quality improvement through the use of clinical performance measures on a variety of clinical conditions. Physicians and other eligible professionals who successfully report on a designated set of quality measures through claims submitted for services beginning July 1, 2007, may earn a bonus payment, subject to a cap, of 1.5% of total allowed charges for covered Medicare physician fee schedule services. Those considering participating in the program should review the PQRI instructions and FAQs posted on the CMS PQRI website at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/pqri.

To assist physicians and other eligible professionals who may elect to participate in this program, CMS has developed participation tools. A few coding vendors are introducing new 'reference manuals' for this program which basically just reformat the CMS documentation. "We felt that this approach just adds to the already burdensome number of manuals clinician's need to manage and review. Instead, we have integrated the coding information, explanations and reporting tools directly into our product lines. This allows our users and data clients to access this information as part of their every day clinical/coding experience without need to access a separate set of reference material. This integration will give clinicians the best chance to actually participate in the program" said Dr. Fabio Almeida, founder of HyperCereus Medical.

There are 74 quality measures for the 2007 PQRI program. The necessary coding information and tools incorporated into HyperCereus Medical's data and online tools are designed to:

aid in the selection of measures by physicians and other eligible professionals wishing to participate in the program
link to background information on the quality measures, including both the rationale and evidence base for each measure
aid in the data collection required to report clinical performance data