Safety: Overuse

This measure assesses the extent to which health care providers actually involve patients in a decision-making process when there is more than one reasonable option. This proposal is to focus on patients who have undergone any one of 7 common, important surgical procedures: total replacement of the knee or hip, lower back surgery for spinal stenosis of herniated disc, radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, mastectomy for early stage breast cancer or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for stable angina.

The SNFRM estimates the risk-standardized rate of all-cause, unplanned hospital readmissions for Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries within 30 days of discharge from a prior proximal acute hospitalization. The prior proximal hospitalization is defined as an admission to an IPPS, CAH, psychiatric, or cancer hospital. The measure is risk-adjusted for patient demographics, principal diagnosis from the prior hospitalization, comorbidities, and other health status variables that affect the probability of a hospital readmission.

This measure calculates the percentage of thorax computed tomography (CT) studies that are performed without and with contrast, out of all thorax CT studies performed (those without contrast, those with contrast, and those with both) at each facility. The measure is calculated based on a one-year window of Medicare fee-for-service claims data. The measure has been publicly reported annually by the measure steward, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), since 2010, as a component of its Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting (HOQR) Program.

Total Cost of Care reflects a mix of complicated factors such as patient illness burden, service utilization and negotiated prices. Total Cost Index (TCI) is a measure of a primary care provider’s risk adjusted cost effectiveness at managing the population they care for. TCI includes all costs associated with treating members including professional, facility inpatient and outpatient, pharmacy, lab, radiology, ancillary and behavioral health services.

The Resource Use Index (RUI) is a risk adjusted measure of the frequency and intensity of services utilized to manage a provider group’s patients. Resource use includes all resources associated with treating members including professional, facility inpatient and outpatient, pharmacy, lab, radiology, ancillary and behavioral health services.

A Resource Use Index when viewed together with the Total Cost of Care measure (NQF-endorsed #1604) provides a more complete picture of population based drivers of health care costs.

The percentage of patients with a primary diagnosis of low back pain who did not have an imaging study (plain X-ray, MRI, CT scan) within 28 days of diagnosis.

The proportion (XX out of 1,000) of individuals without cancer receiving prescriptions for opioids with a daily dosage greater than 120mg morphine equivalent dose (MED) for 90 consecutive days or longer.

The proportion (XX out of 1,000) of individuals without cancer receiving prescriptions for opioids from four (4) or more prescribers AND four (4) or more pharmacies.