Quality Performance

Know Your Value

MACRA Move Beyond Compliance and Demonstrate Value

Why This Matters

Quality measurement and reporting offers individual clinicians and their groups an opportunity to demonstrate value and high-quality care locally and in several federal and state programs.

Anesthesiologists and their groups that are eligible to participate and report in payment programs must maintain current knowledge of reporting requirements. In 2022 and beyond, up to 9% of Medicare Fee for Service payments could be affected by an individual or group’s participation in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System.

Private payer and anesthesia contracts with hospital administrations may also be contingent on a group collecting, reporting, and improving upon quality measures. Regardless of your reporting status, whether you’re in MIPS, an Accountable Care Organization, Alternative Payment Model, or other arrangement, the collection of quality data is something anesthesiologists have long recognized as key to improving patient care and ensuring patient safety.

Nonetheless, individuals and groups should consider collecting data on quality measures and reporting their data to the Anesthesia Quality Institute® (AQI®) National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry® (NACOR®) Each group and individual member reporting to AQI NACOR receives a detailed dashboard of their measures that include benchmarks across anesthesia practices.

What You Should Know

Anesthesia groups should collect data on quality measures for payment purposes, contract negotiations, and local quality improvement initiatives.
Once you collect and report your quality measure data, AQI NACOR provides you with a centralized location to store your data, review your reports, and benchmark your performance.
Anesthesia groups should strive to collect and submit data on a monthly basis. Routine review of data and performance can enhance a group’s opportunities to improve care, become more efficient, and create actionable plans for quality improvement.

What ASA and AQI Are Doing For You

Each year, ASA updates our Quality Payment Program website, including the quality measures and improvement activities most applicable to anesthesiologists and their groups.
ASA is the leader in developing anesthesia quality measures for our specialty. We not only test our measures for reliability and validity purposes, we also advocate on behalf of our members for public and private payers to incorporate anesthesia measures in a way that highlights the role anesthesiologists play in protecting patient safety, improving quality, and reducing costs.
AQI NACOR continues to collect millions of cases that have helped groups identify their gaps in quality, create action plans for improving patient outcomes, and show their quality of care to patients, payers, and hospitals.
AQI Anesthesia Incident Reporting System (AIRS) collects data on adverse events, near misses, and other scenarios that impacted patient safety. AIRS uses these case studies for ASA Monitor articles and its Patient Safety Educational Sessions.

What You Can Do Now

Actions you can take today

Determine if your practice has a “Quality Data Strategy.”
Talk to your group’s leadership about the importance of capturing quality data.
Download the current set of MIPS and QCDR Measures.
Contact AQI with any measure feedback or comments you have. AQI seeks to reduce your burden by making sure our measures have clinical relevance and can be captured by anesthesiologists.

Explore Additional Resources

AQI Anesthesia Incident Reporting System (AIRS)

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AQI Quality Website

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AQI Quality Reporting

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ASA Quality Payment Program

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This page is curated by the ASA Department of Quality and Regulatory Affairs and was last updated December 2022.

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