CLIENT REACTIONS TO PQRI

How has the process been working out?

Following are a few observations by physicians participating in PQRI.

  Capturing the information

We’ve been using a paper reporting tool for the 3 diabetes measures. Our front desk puts it on all charts for Medicare patients, and the physicians or physician assistants decide if a given patient meets the requirements for reporting. It has been fairly simple to complete the forms at the time of visits and return them the superbills to our billing department daily for reporting.—Mary Campagnolo, MD; Lumberton, New Jersey

We are using the AAFP reporting tool for diabetes. The staff runs a report to identify Medicare patients with that diagnosis and places the form in all appropriate charts. As patients come in, the form is stapled to the superbill and must be filled out for the diabetic measures. If the superbill arrives at the front desk with an incomplete form, the practitioner gets hounded for it immediately.—Paul J. Reiss, MD; Williston, Vermont

Our nurses make sure the reporting tool is affixed to Medicare patients’ charts, and the front desk makes sure it is completed before submission. We also have a charge-adjudication routine that looks for CPT II codes in conjunction with the ICD code for diabetes.—Jeffrey L. Susman, MD; Cincinnati, Ohio

We have an EMR, but it doesn’t have a prompt in the latest update. We still find it difficult to remember to fill out the attachment for the superbill. We may not meet the minimum CMS requirements, but the exercise has been helping us get used to the idea of reporting. The key in our office has been to make someone (ie, the front desk) the “owner” of the task of placing the tool on the superbill and then selling it as a high-priority item. We’ve given them permission to bug us.—Joseph S. Hunter, MD; Southaven, Mississippi

We have also been keeping a supply of reporting tools in each examination room, for those times when patients slip through the cracks at the front desk. The process has made me more aware that a high percentage of our patients are enrolled in managed Medicare plans and thus are not subject to reporting. This has been a source of confusion for our front desk, so we have not made them responsible for deciding which patients are reportable.—Mary Campagnolo, MD

  Drawback with time-of-visit reporting

The requirement to report at the time of visit is unsettling because much of the lab work returns following the visit. It would be far better if we could report monthly from our registry.—Michael O’Dell, MD; Tupelo, Mississippi

Given the lack of lab data at the time of visit, we are reporting what we have from within the past year, or just the data on 1 or 2 measures available to us at the visit. We then hope to capture the rest when patients return for follow-up visits.—Mary Campagnolo, MD