Re: Concerns Regarding the Commercial Use of MIPS Measures
Dear Dr. Yong:
The undersigned members of the Physician Clinical Registry Coalition (the Coalition) are
writing to express our ongoing concerns about the commercial misuse of quality measures
developed for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), which was established by the
Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). While we appreciate the
responsiveness of your office to our previously-stated concerns regarding the ownership and
licensing of Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) measures, we have become increasingly
aware of inappropriate and opportunistic commercial misuses of copyrighted MIPS measures
developed by medical societies that operate qualified registries or QCDRs. We respectfully
request that your office issue similar sub-regulatory guidance about the ownership and licensing
of MIPS measures as it has issued for QCDR measures.
We previously sent a letter to you dated July 11, 2017 that discussed our concerns regarding the
ownership and licensing of QCDR measures. We requested that CMS properly record ownership
of all approved QCDR measures to protect the intellectual property rights of the owner of the
measure, because these protections incentivize organizations to develop new and improved
measures, and to maintain and update existing measures. We also submitted comments on the
CY 2018 QPP proposed rule that reiterated our support of the proposal that QCDR vendors must seek permission from the owner of a QCDR measure before using that measure during the
performance period, and that such permission should be obtained at the time of self-nomination. In our comments, we also recommended that CMS record the ownership of all approved
measures to protect the intellectual property rights of the owner and ensure that the measures are
used appropriately. In the CY 2018 final rule, CMS finalized its proposal, required assignment
of QCDR measure IDs for all approved QCDR measures, and required QCDRs that have
received permission to report the measure to use the same QCDR measure ID. CMS stated that
it may request that a borrowing QCDR provide proof that it has received permission to use a
QCDR measure owned by another QCDR. CMS also clarified that the borrowing QCDR must
use the exact measure specification provided by the QCDR measure owner.
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Read full letter here
