Website Available to Educate Orthopaedic Surgeons on CMS Physician Quality Reporting Initiative

The CMS Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) is a voluntary program in which physicians collect and report their practice data in relation to a set of 74 performance measures. The new AAOS Web page devoted to PQRI provides members with an overview of PQRI, links to information on 10 orthopaedic-related quality measures, and worksheets that include the CPT and ICD-9 codes related to the specific measures. These worksheets will be updated as new quality measures are identified and approved. The PQRI program begins July 1, 2007 and runs through December 31, 2007. To qualify for up to a 1.5% bonus on all your Medicare billings (excluding charges for x-ray, DME or PT) during that period, you must report at least three performance measures on 80% of the eligible patients. The AAOS PQRI page can be viewed at:

http://www.aaos.org/pqri

You may also obtain the full set of quality measures from the CMS Web site at:

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/PQRI