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CMS announced last week it will award up to $30 million in grant funding to clinical specialty societies, clinical professional organizations and independent research organizations to develop quality measures under the Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). This was among AMIA’s top recommendations to CMS throughout 2016 as a means to improve the value of quality measurement in MIPS and APMs.

“Recognizing the benefits of measure development by external stakeholders with specific knowledge of clinician and patient perspectives and needs, the funding assistance of these cooperative agreements is specifically designated for entities, external to CMS and other federal agencies, such as clinical specialty societies, clinical professional organizations, patient advocacy organizations, educational institutions, independent research organizations, health systems, and other entities with working knowledge in quality measure development to develop quality measures that could be potentially used for the Quality Payment Program,” CMS wrote in its funding announcement. “Specifically, collaboration and support for these entities in measure development will assist CMS in addressing such essential topics as: clinician engagement, burden reduction, consumer informed decisions, critical measure gaps, shared care and payment accountability quality measure alignment, and efficient data collection.”

The application deadline is Sept. 30 and awards will be announced Nov. 30, with grant funding for the 2018 fiscal year.

The CMS funding page is here.