Now Available: Updated 2020 CMS QRDA III Implementation Guide for New COVID-19 Clinical Trials Improvement Activity

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published an update to the 2020 CMS Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Category III Implementation Guide (IG). The update provides information on a new COVID-19 Clinical Trials Improvement Activity for eligible clinicians for the Quality Payment Program Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) 2020 performance period. This update supports the MIPS extreme and uncontrollable circumstances policy and procedures for MIPS eligible clinicians affected by COVID-19 update issued by CMS on April 20, 2020.

New COVID-19 Clinical Trials Improvement Activity added to the 2020 CMS QRDA III IG:

• Activity ID: IA_ERP_3
• Activity Title: COVID-19 Clinical Trials
• Activity Description: In order to receive credit for this activity, a MIPS eligible clinician must participate in a COVID-19 clinical trial utilizing a drug or biological product to treat a patient with a COVID-19 infection and report their findings through a clinical data repository or clinical data registry for the duration of their study. For more information on the COVID-19 clinical trials, we refer readers to the U.S. National Library of Medicine website.

Additional QRDA-Related Resources:

Additional QRDA-related resources, as well as current and past IGs, are found on the Electronic Clinical Quality Improvement (eCQI) Resource Center QRDA page. For questions related to this guidance, the QRDA IGs or Schematrons, visit the ONC Project Tracking System (Jira) QRDA project.