What Are The Behavioral Health Implications Of CMS Quality Initiatives?

What began in 2002 with the launch of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Nursing Home Quality Initiative, now involves as many as 22 separate CMS quality programs. This “blossoming” number of CMS quality initiatives has been fueled by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which expanded facility types covered and mandated Medicare payment adjustments when eligible entities missed quality targets.

Now, CMS quality initiatives touch nearly every aspect of the health care system, including behavioral health – currently there are over 900 (not mutually exclusive) quality measures in use across all programs; 45 (or almost five . . .