Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting

Overview

Authorized by the Medicare Improvement and Extension Act-Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, the Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting (ASCQR) Program is a pay-for-reporting program which collects and publicly reports facility-level quality measure data from ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) paid under the ASC fee schedule for care provided in this setting.

Under the ASCQR Program, ambulatory surgical centers must meet all program requirements or may receive a 2-percentage point payment penalty to their annual payment rate update. These requirements include allowing the public display of data submitted under the program; these data are available at data.cms.gov.

Program Requirements

Initial ASCQR Program requirements were finalized in the CY 2012 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS)/ASC final rule with comment period, CMS-1525-FC, and the FY 2013 Inpatient Prospective Payment System/Long-term Care Hospital (IPPS/LTCH) final rule with comment period

Current information on ASCQR Program requirements is available on our QualityNet website.

ASC Quality Reporting Program Measures

ASC quality measures selected for use in the ASCQR Program evaluate the care with which an ASC provides treatment or adheres to processes expected to facilitate the best patient outcomes for the aspects of care measured. This is done by converting patient recorded information into metrics that allow for both facilities and consumers to assess and compare facility care performance in the ASC setting.

The ASCQR Program measures collect data derived from various methods including chart-abstraction, claims information, web-based entries, and surveys to measure aspects of patient care such as outcomes and processes, patient safety, and care coordination. In addition, measures for procedures performed in the ASC setting that CMS identifies as being particularly consumer relevant, (e.g., outpatient surgery and colonoscopies) are adopted for program use.

CMS continues to evaluate measures, ensuring meaningful information is collected to ensure quality of care, removing measures that are no longer needed and adding measures to continue the quality improvement process.

More information regarding the ASCQR measures can be found on the "Ambulatory Surgical Centers" section of QualityNet.

Public Reporting

Section 1833(t)(17)(E) of the Social Security Act and requires that the Secretary establish procedures to make data collected under the ASCQR Program available to the public.

The data.cms.gov website publishes information on the quality of care provided to patients, including from data collected through the ASCQR Program. This information is made available to the public to compare the quality of care provided in various care settings (including, for example, ASCs and hospital outpatient departments), and to encourage healthcare providers and facilities to make continued improvements in care quality, by providing benchmarks for selected clinical areas and through public transparency of quality data.

Current and archived ASC results are available at data.cms.gov.

Contact Us

Submit questions or browse existing answers on the ASCQR Program through the QualityNet Question and Answer Tool or call the ASCQR Support Team at (866) 800-8756 weekdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time.