What role do the six regional Better Quality Information for Medicare Beneficiaries (BQI) project pilot communities play in this initiative? Are employers required to participate?

Answer:

Currently, the Better Quality Information for Medicare Beneficiaries (BQI) project is being implemented in six regional communities around the country.  In these communities, employers, health insurance plans, and in some cases Medicaid programs and providers have formed collaboratives through which they have been combining their claims data or clinical information to provide consistent measures of the quality of health care services.  Through the BQI project, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) will allow the private data to be aggregated with Medicare claims data to produce more accurate, comprehensive measures of the quality of services at the provider level.  This process is necessary to enable data to be aggregated effectively while ensuring the privacy and security of the information.  Provider quality information based on this all-payer data will be made available to Medicare beneficiaries over internet Web sites.  The quality information will allow Medicare beneficiaries to get a better picture of the value of their health care purchases.  Since this information will be made available to Medicare beneficiaries over publicly accessible internet Web sites, it will be accessible by anyone. 

In addition to access to the all-payer quality data that will be displayed by CMS for Medicare beneficiaries on public web sites, employers that participate in the BQI project potentially have the opportunity to assist the Medicare program by providing suggestions for additional measures for use in reporting quality data.  Furthermore, they potentially may also have the opportunity to shape the measures to be developed through broad-based collaboration for use by Medicare and all payers, and ultimately improve the value of care for your own workforce.  CMS is also considering ways to expand this project to additional communities.

Learn more: http://www.hhs.gov/transparency/pilot/

Last Updated: 4/25/2008