Proposed future changes in RHQDAPU

As mentioned earlier, CMS posted its annual Proposed Rules in the Federal Register today. You can access the entire 1,228 page document here.

Although the entire document may be of interest to the healthcare quality professional, of particular interest would be the section describing new quality measures linked to payment - especially ones that will require additional chart abstracting.

• The RHQDAPU section starts on page 323 with a history of the program.
• Proposed FY2010 measures are listed on page 329.
• Proposed FY2011 measures are listed on page 345.
• Two of the FY2011 proposed measures will require chart abstraction: 1) SCIP-Inf 9 - Postoperative Urinary Catheter Removal on PostOp Day 1 or 2; 2) SCIP-Inf 10 - Postoperative Temperature Management.
• Page 347 starts a list of possible additional measures for consideration for FY2012.

If you don't like what you see, you can send comments to CMS until June 30, 2009.