HEDIS® Public Comment is Open
February 17, 2023 · Andy Reynolds
NCQA’s public comment period is open and ready for your input.
Public comment is your opportunity to weigh in on the relevance, scientific soundness and feasibility of new and revised HEDIS measures. Your feedback helps us determine changes to our content and programs.
We seek comments about:
- Revisions to diabetes measures.
- Expansion of race and ethnicity stratifications in select HEDIS measures.
- Advancing gender-inclusion measurement in two HEDIS measures.
- Retirement of several measures.
Proposed Changes to Existing Measures
Diabetes Care: We are asking for input on changes to HbA1c Control for Patients With Diabetes and Eye Exam for Patients With Diabetes, and to the denominator used in seven measures related to diabetes care. These efforts reflect new claims data coding practices, pharmacy practices and the use of electronic clinical data and new technologies.
Proposed Revisions to Gender Documentation in Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening: We also ask for comment on defining gender for Breast Cancer Screening and Cervical Cancer Screening, and including transgender and gender-diverse members. This is part of a larger effort to ensure that our measures are inclusive, gender affirming and address care for all populations.
Expansion of Race and Ethnicity Stratifications in HEDIS: We are looking for advice on expanding race and ethnicity stratification, specifically for proposed measures to which we want to add stratification. We intend to expand stratification to increase transparency into quality differences and reduce care disparities among patient populations. This is part of our ongoing work to advance health equity in data and quality measurement.
Proposed Measures for Retirement
We propose to retire some measures to reduce reporting burden and help health plans focus on new electronic clinical data measures and the transition to digital quality operations.
Reasons we consider retiring measures include:
- Evidence changes.
- Redundancies in measures emerge.
- Opportunity for improvement is low.
- We see a way for a new and better measure can address an existing quality concept.
NCQA seeks comment on the following proposed retirements:
HEDIS Measurement Year 2024
- Ambulatory Care.
- Antidepressant Medication Management.
- Inpatient Utilization—General Hospital/Acute Care.
- Medical Assistance with Smoking and Tobacco Use Cessation.
- Non-Recommended Cervical Cancer Screening in Adolescent Females.
- Use of Spirometry Testing in the Assessment and Diagnosis of COPD.
HEDIS Measurement Year 2025
- Care for Older Adults—Pain Assessment.
Participate in Public Comment
Public comment began February 13 and ends at 5:00 PM ET on March 13, 2013.
Got to our public comment page to participate.
About HEDIS and Public Comment
HEDIS comprises measures of clinical quality and patient experience that are based on scientific evidence. When new evidence becomes available, we reviews the measures to determine if changes may be needed. We convene multi-stakeholder advisory panels—including independent scientists, clinicians, health plans, purchasers, government and consumer groups—to ensure that measures meet and balance the high standards of relevance, scientific soundness and feasibility.
An important part of developing and updating HEDIS is hearing from the public. We review every comment we receive during public comment, and we discuss results with our stakeholder advisors.
HEDIS measures do not constitute clinical practice guidelines and should not be used to determine insurance or coverage.
HEDIS® is a registered trademark of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).
CAHPS® is a registered trademark of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
