- The Honorable John Joyce, M.D.
Co-Chair
GOP Doctors Caucus
U.S. House of Representatives
2102 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515 - The Honorable Gregory F. Murphy, M.D.
Co-Chair
GOP Doctors Caucus
U.S. House of Representatives
407 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515 - The Honorable Kim Schrier, M.D.
Chair
Democratic Doctors Caucus
U.S. House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
1110 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Re: Physician Clinical Registry Coalition’s Endorsement of and Recommended Edits to the Patients First Act
Dear Chairs Joyce, Murphy, and Schrier:
The undersigned members of the Physician Clinical Registry Coalition (“Coalition”) appreciate your leadership in advancing Medicare legislation that would establish a clinically meaningful quality measurement and payment framework. We also appreciate your continued commitment to working with stakeholders as you refine the Patients First Act of 2026. The Coalition is a group of medical society-sponsored clinical data registries that collect and analyze clinical outcomes data to identify best practices and improve patient care. We are committed to advocating for policies that encourage and enable the development of clinician-led clinical data registries and enhance their ability to improve quality of care through the analysis and reporting of clinical outcomes.
We commend Title II’s recognition of the critical role that clinician-led clinical data registries play as the foundational infrastructure for quality measurement, improvement, and value-based payment. In particular, we appreciate the inclusion of provisions in the bill that:
- Help ensure that the role of Qualified Clinical Data Registries (“QCDRs”) in the development, maintenance, and refinement of measures is preserved or strengthened;
- Encourage quality measure reporting through registries; August 21, 2026
- Protect the ownership and intellectual property rights of QCDRs;
- Incorporate the Access to Claims Data Act, which would establish a process to provide QCDRs or clinician-led clinical data registries with timely, comprehensive, and continuous access to federal claims data; and
- Incentivize clinicians to report new measures, substantively changed measures, or measures lacking established benchmarks.
We welcome the opportunity to serve as an ongoing resource to the Joint Doctors Caucus, and we respectfully offer the following comments and recommendations regarding Title II of the Patients First Act governing the “Patient Outcome Improvement National Tabulation System” or
“POINTS.”
Click here to view the full PCRC Letter Supporting the Patients First Act (H.R. 9693)
