CMS QRDA Pre-Submission Validation Tools Guide

• Eligible  Clinicians/Eligible Professionals (EPs)
• Eligible Hospitals (EHs)/Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs)
• Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Category I
• QRDA Category III

• EH/CAHs
• QRDA Category I

A development tool for health information technology (IT) vendors who are testing synthetic QRDA Category I and Category III documents for conformance to the base Health Level Seven International® (HL7) QRDA standards and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) submission requirements.

Validates files against the base HL7® Implementation Guides (IGs) or for the EH/CAH or the EP/Eligible Clinician constraints as specified in the 2020, 2021 CMS QRDA Category I and QRDA Category III IGs.

The Hospital Quality Reporting (HQR) System is used by EHs and CAHs that are completing eCQM reporting to the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) and/or the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Programs. CMS notifies users when the receiving system is available to accept test and production QRDA Category I files. The HQR System performs the same validation and measure calculations for test files and production files, although only production files are submitted to meet program data submission requirements.

Note: eCQM files submitted to the test system will not be reviewed or evaluated for IQR Program or Promoting Interoperability credit.

Accessible to anyone

For the 2020 Performance/Reporting Period use https://cypressvalidator.healthit.gov/

For the 2021 Performance/Reporting Period use https://cypressdemo.healthit.gov/

Users must login to the HQR Home Page-CMS: https://hqr.cms.gov/hqrng/login with valid user credentials to access the File Upload card. Users will verify they are on the eCQM tab and then user will select Test or Production. Users will have option to select files or drag and drop the files into the highlighted area.

Supports QRDA Category I R5.1 and R5.2. Supports QRDA Category III R2.1.

Supports QRDA Category I R5.1.

The public instance of Cypress (https://cypressdemo.healthit.gov/) does not accept personally identifiable information (PII)/ protected health information (PHI). A downloadable version of the Cypress Validation Utility + Calculation Check (CVU+) is available by itself or with Cypress v5 and Cypress v6.

The system can accept PII or PHI in submitted files.

Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+)

Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)

Primary Care First (PCF)

HQR

Promoting Interoperability

HQR-EHR submissions for Promoting Interoperability and IQR programs.

None

This is the official CMS submission system and is completely integrated into the CMS infrastructure. All files that pass test submissions validation will pass production submission validation.

Yes, for EP/Eligible Clinician and EH/CAH submissions based on CMS’s 2020 and 2021 QRDA Category I and QRDA Category III IGs. However, it does not perform all validations that occur on the official CMS systems. Cypress does not perform the CMS required validation of Authorized CMS Certification Numbers (CCNs).

Yes, the system validates HQR test and production submissions based on CMS 2020 QRDA I IG.

Hosted on a public server maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality. Amazon Machine Image (AMI) and Virtual Machine (VM) available for download as standalone or alongside Cypress certification tool.

Runs on the CMS HQR site (accessed via https://hqr.cms.gov/hqrng/login). This is a secure environment running in the CMS Data Center. No tools are necessary other than a standard PC with a supported web browser.

Upload one file at a time to the Cypress Validation Utility.

Select files or drag and drop the files into the highlighted area.

The uploaded file is either a zip file containing multiple files or a single XML file.

Files or zipped files. A single batch may contain up to 14,999 files.

Displays results of eCQMs included in uploaded QRDA document.

Yes.

Displays all error messages on the screen found for the entire file; identifies QRDA statements in error.

Generates a CSV report with all error messages found in the entire file; reports accessible from CMS HQR site and clicking on the eCQM card following successful processing of files within batches.

Stores validation results and calculations for future retrieval. Results on public instance are removed weekly.

All files from submissions are stored indefinitely. They can be retrieved at any time via the CMS HQR System and clicking on eCQM card.

None

Test submissions through the CMS HQR site are identical to the production submissions in terms of validation and measure calculation. A vendor or provider will know exactly what the production results will be for a QRDA by using the test submission feature in the secure portal.

None

The HQR System is a shared submission system and all files are processed on a first come, first served queue.

Updated Annually: generally, 1-2 months after publication of new CMS QRDA IGs.

Support for the 2021 CMS QRDA Category I and QRDA Category III IGs was added on July 23, 2020.

The HQR System is typically updated in the fall to receive the most current version of the QRDA Category I files based on the CMS QRDA I IG and Schematrons published on the eCQI Resource Center.

https://oncprojectracking.healthit.gov/support/projects/CYP...

QualityNet Help Desk: 866-288-8912 (TTY 877-715-6222) 7:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m. CT M-F or qnetsupport@hcqis.org. You will be asked to provide basic information such as name, practice, address, phone, and e-mail.