Rethinking IPFQR Reporting: From Annual Burden to Ongoing Insight

IPFQR (Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting) is an important part of meeting CMS requirements, but compliance should not come at the expense of valuable staff time. Facilities that do not meet applicable requirements face a 2-percentage-point reduction to their Medicare annual payment, making accurate and timely reporting essential.

For many inpatient psychiatric facilities, traditional reporting can require significant effort to collect, reconcile, validate, and prepare data for submission. Some facilities indicate the process can take 45 to 60 days of staff time. For organizations already operating with limited resources, that administrative burden can make reporting difficult to manage.

But IPFQR should be more than an annual compliance exercise. The measures are intended to help facilities assess and improve the quality of care they provide. Having access to measure results throughout the year can help organizations identify documentation and performance gaps while there is still time to address them.

A More Efficient Approach

The HCS Behavioral Health Record Compliance Toolkit streamlines IPFQR by using information already documented in the electronic health record to support measure abstraction and reporting. Facilities can review and measure results and supporting patient-level information, validate their data, and use those results to support ongoing quality improvement.

When it is time to report, HCS generates CMS-compatible submission files and submits applicable data to the CMS Hospital Quality Reporting System on the facility’s behalf. Facilities retain responsibility for reviewing their data, ensuring it is accurate and complete, and completing the required Data Accuracy and Completeness Acknowledgement (DACA).

Depending on the facility’s current process and costs, the potential annual savings can be approximately $65,000 to $75,000, in addition to avoiding the 2-percentage-point reduction to the Medicare annual payment update.

For HCS Compliance Toolkit IPFQR users, the annual report process came and went without the headaches and considerable time investment often associated with the traditional method. Equally importantly, IPFQR data was more accessible and actionable throughout the year so less time was spent assembling data and more time was available to understand what the data revealed about patient care.

IPFQR (Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting) is an important part of meeting CMS requirements, but compliance should not come at the expense of valuable staff time. Facilities that do not meet applicable requirements face a 2-percentage-point reduction to their Medicare annual payment, making accurate and timely reporting essential.

For many inpatient psychiatric facilities, traditional reporting can require significant effort to collect, reconcile, validate, and prepare data for submission. Some facilities indicate the process can take 45 to 60 days of staff time. For organizations already operating with limited resources, that administrative burden can make reporting difficult to manage.

But IPFQR should be more than an annual compliance exercise. The measures are intended to help facilities assess and improve the quality of care they provide. Having access to measure results throughout the year can help organizations identify documentation and performance gaps while there is still time to address them.

A More Efficient Approach

The HCS Behavioral Health Record Compliance Toolkit streamlines IPFQR by using information already documented in the electronic health record to support measure abstraction and reporting. Facilities can review and measure results and supporting patient-level information, validate their data, and use those results to support ongoing quality improvement.

When it is time to report, HCS generates CMS-compatible submission files and submits applicable data to the CMS Hospital Quality Reporting System on the facility’s behalf. Facilities retain responsibility for reviewing their data, ensuring it is accurate and complete, and completing the required Data Accuracy and Completeness Acknowledgement (DACA).

Depending on the facility’s current process and costs, the potential annual savings can be approximately $65,000 to $75,000, in addition to avoiding the 2-percentage-point reduction to the Medicare annual payment update.

For HCS Compliance Toolkit IPFQR users, the annual report process came and went without the headaches and considerable time investment often associated with the traditional method. Equally importantly, IPFQR data was more accessible and actionable throughout the year so less time was spent assembling data and more time was available to understand what the data revealed about patient care.