NetHealth, Inc. Selected by CMS as PQRI Reporting Provider

June 9, 2009 - PRLog -- NetHealth, Inc. (http://www.nethealthinc.com) announced today that it was approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as a participating registry of the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI). The adaptable NetHealth Performance Improvement Platform (PIP) is now accepted as a means for simplified physician reporting of performance improvement activity under PQRI.

PQRI is a voluntary quality and performance improvement reporting program that provides financial incentive for eligible healthcare professionals. Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPAA) of 2008 authorized a 2% bonus for those who successfully report quality measures. Additionally, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), the American Medical Association (AMA), and many others are now mandating that an element of PI be phased in as an integral part of Maintenance of Certification (MOC) and CME activities.

NetHealth has partnered with several leading-edge organizations in the development of specialized PI modules and offers its services to organizations interested in providing their constituents with cutting edge and user-friendly tools for meeting the PI challenge and qualifying for PQRI incentives. The NetHealth web-based Performance Improvement Platform invites specialty societies, associations, academies, and academic institutions to develop PI-based CME activities that meet MOC Part 4 credit needs, utilizing evidence-based resources and customized to medical specialization. The adaptable NetHealth framework gives physicians the tools to evaluate and improve practice performance, providing superior guidance through medical chart abstraction of de-identified data. Each question in collaboratively designed templates relates directly to evidence-based quality measures, providing a cumulative and automated data report.

According to Lauren Patrick, Founder and President of NetHealth, “We are pleased to be chosen as a participating registry.  We hope to assist in the adoption of performance reporting by integrating this process with other performance improvement initiatives.  Our goal is to assist health care providers effectively implement performance improvement, with the ultimate outcome of better patient care.”    

In order to achieve this approval, NetHealth participated in a detailed approval process.  CMS conducted an analysis of the registry, checking NetHealth’s capability to provide the required PQRI data elements; reviewing a measure flow, which checks to see whether the registry calculates the measure’s reporting and performance rates correctly; and transmitting the required information via an XML transmission.

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About NetHealth, Inc.

For over a decade, Net Health has provided data driven, user centered, and collaborative online programs to educational and medical organizations that need to sharpen the knowledge and quality improvement of physicians and other health care providers. NetHealth creates effective tools, inspired by physician collaboration and cutting edge Web functionality. Based on our experience working with leading providers such as the University of Pennsylvania and Case Western Reserve Medical Schools, NetHealth knows what it takes to create evidence-based programs that make a difference. www.nethealthinc.com