With rapid growth in hospice and palliative care (HPC), we aim to provide resources and tools to assist the health care team to address quality and patient safety in hospice and palliative care settings.
The Palliative Care Measures Project
To address the need for meaningful quality measures in HPC and to elevate patient and caregiver voices, in 2021, AAHPM completed a three-year measure development project to create two new patient-reported experience measures for outpatient palliative care with project subrecipients the National Coalition For Hospice and Palliative Care and RAND Corporation.
The new measures assess the quality of care provided by asking how much patients felt heard and understood, and if patients got the help they wanted for their pain. This project included the development of a resource to support the implementation of the measures. This guide is a key instrument when incorporating the measures into programs QI efforts. A unique element of this project was a consistent and intentional commitment to include patients and caregivers in the measure development process.
This project was funded through a cooperative agreement between the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and AAHPM. More information can be found on the quality measures project webpage hosted by the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care.
This measure development project complements other AAHPM-convened quality and payment initiatives, including: the unification of specialty palliative care quality registries under a new quality collaborative (the PCQC), testing of a methodology to identify the population with serious illness for inclusion in quality measures, and a proposal for an alternative payment model to support community based palliative care.
The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) doesn’t exclude, or otherwise discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, sex, or age in admission to, participation in, or receipt of the services under our quality measures development project funded by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS).
AAHPM is committed to making its electronic and information technologies about our CMS funded quality measure development project accessible to people with disabilities. If you can’t access content or features on this website due to a disability, contact [email protected]. To help us better serve you, upload the material in question and/or include the URL and let us know the specific problems you face. Please include your name, phone number, type of information you need (if known) and your mailing address. We may contact you for additional information.
Quality Reporting
There are many federal quality programs that might impact AAHPM members. Mandated by the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) website contains updates regarding program requirements through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA)
MACRA repealed the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula and authorized a new incentive based system for Medicare physician payments, known as MIPS.
What is MACRA?
MACRA replaces legacy quality programs with the Quality Payment Program (QPP) in which physician Medicare payments will be based on participation in one of two tracks:
These programs reward physicians based on performance participation in new payment and delivery models.
Quality Resources
View resources below from AAHPM and other organizations to benefit your quality initiatives.