ASCP’s NPQR Granted Renewed QCDR Status from CMS to Help Pathologists Fulfill CMS Requirements

The American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) is pleased to announce that its National Pathology Quality Registry (NPQR) has been granted renewed Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) status for 2019 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). With QCDR status, NPQR offers pathologists a way to meet requirements under CMS’ Quality Payment Program (QPP) so that they can potentially gain positive payment adjustments and avoid penalties.

In addition to 13 QCDR measures, ASCP has 23 exclusive NPQR measures, and six QPP measures. ASCP is currently working with multiple private and academic institutions to optimize and validate the automated transfer of data from AP and CP laboratory information systems to NPQR, where these data are honed for analysis and benchmarking.

“This past year has been a very busy one for the NPQR,” says Ali Brown, MD, FASCP, Chief Officer, Medical Quality for ASCP. “Our team has been working hard to create robust, meaningful measures and educational tools to support those measures.” She adds, “2019 is going to be a big year for NPQR with new measures, analytics and tools for pathologists and laboratories.”

NPQR, established by ASCP in 2016, offers a wide variety of meaningful, patient-centric measures – a subset of which are designated for MIPS reporting through the QCDR. The measures currently focus on the following topics, and additional topics will be added in the future:

-Monitoring appropriate utilization of laboratory testing

-Improving pre-analytical processes

-Optimizing turnaround time and critical value reporting

-Assessing analytical and diagnostic accuracy

NPQR aggregates data from both clinical and anatomic pathology lab information systems to provide regularly-updated dashboards that drill down to patient-level details. Participants can then create and share reports with frontline staff, departments, practice managers and hospital administrators, allowing pathologists and laboratory professionals to take a leading role in quality management at their institutions.

In October 2018, ASCP was awarded a $2.1 million grant by CMS to develop pathology-related quality measures that will be incorporated into NPQR for the QPP.  The CMS grant will facilitate ASCP’s efforts to demonstrate through NPQR that pathology is central to the value-based care movement that is a principal theme in medical practice. Through the grant, ASCP is continuing to build a pathology-related QPP quality measure portfolio with an emphasis on clinical and patient perspectives and minimizing reporting burden for clinicians.

“We encourage laboratories to join the National Pathology Quality Registry,” said ASCP CEO E. Blair Holladay, PhD, MASCP, SCT(ASCP)^CM. “The NPQR empowers laboratories to promote the field of pathology by harnessing the tremendous amount of data stored in laboratory information systems and utilizing it to improve patient care.”

Pathologists and laboratories can learn more about participating in NPQR, at www.ascp.org/NPQR.