Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) have a little more time to compile and submit their calendar year (CY) 2021 Promoting Interoperability programs and electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) data.

Details: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) pushed back the deadline impacting eligible hospitals and CAHs’ 2021 Medicare PI programs submissions from Feb. 28, 2022 to March 31, 2022. There’s a separate hardship exception process available to providers on CMS’ PI scoring, payment adjustment, and hardship information page at www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EHRIncentivePrograms/PaymentAdj_Hardship. The application for CY 2021 is not available on the page yet, but the CY 2020 has closed.

Providers submitting eCQM data for CY 2021/FY 2023 have until March 31, 2022 now, too, but “all other aspects of eCQM reporting requirements remain the same,” CMS says.

Hospitals that participate in the Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program can submit an Extraordinary Circumstances Exceptions (ECE) request for CY 2021 eCQM reporting through Friday, April 1, 2022. Check your eCQM status or request an exception at https://hqr.cms.gov/hqrng/login.

Read the CMS brief on the new timelines at https://ecqi.healthit.gov/deadline-extended-cy-2021-ecqm-submissions-and-medicare-promoting-interoperability-program-attestation.