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Quality Incentive Program (QIP)

"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administers the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Quality Incentive Program (QIP) to promote high-quality services in outpatient dialysis facilities treating patients with ESRD.  The first of its kind in Medicare, this program changes the way CMS pays for the treatment of  patients with ESRD by linking a portion of payment directly to facilities’ performance on quality of care measures. These types of programs are known as “pay-for-performance” or “value-based purchasing” (VBP) programs." CMS.gov  

 QIP Website

“What Every Facility Should Know” webinar April 2019 

Reporting requirements regarding disasters
Applicability of Reporting Requirements for Providers Affected by Hurricane Irma- 9/14/2017
Applicability of Reporting Requirements for Providers Affected by Hurricane Harvey- 9/12/2017 Update
Clarification about ESRD QIP Extraordinary Circumstances Exception (ECE) policy - 10/31/2017

ESRD Quality Incentive Program - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

CMS QIP Exceptions for Dialysis Facilities affected by Hurricane Harvey, August 31, 2017

QIP 1.0.0 Registration Instructions required for all Point Of Contacts (POC) to access the Performance Score Report (PSR) and Performance Score Certificate (PSC)

QIP 1.0.0 System Training

Calendar Year 2018 / Payment Year 2020

Calendar Year 2017 / Payment Year 2019

Calendar Year 2015/2016 / Payment Year 2017/2018

QIP Resources

Dialysis Facility Compare (DFC): 5 Star Ratings

5 Star Rating Refresh
Dialysis Facility Compare Social Media Toolkit for Dialysis Centers
DFC and QIP performance measures

Dialysis Facility Report (DFR)

Memorandums

Support the ESRD QIP, Dialysis Facility Compare, Star Ratings, and Dialysis Facility Reports for Performance Assessment and Improvement

Dialysis Facility Report (DFR)  - Produced by University of Michigan Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center (UM-KECC)

Understanding the CMS ESRD Measure Manual

In-Center Hemodialysis Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (ICH-CAHPS)

The ICH-CAHPS survey is a standardized questionnaire produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for adult hemodialysis patients who receive care from in-center dialysis facilities. It asks patients about their experiences with the facility that provides their  dialysis. ICH-CAHPS is intended to serve as a compass for providers to gauge patients’ perceptions with their experience of care and is a valuable tool for providers focused on patient entered care. Facilities should analyze ICH-CAHPS results for QAPI, include patient and staff feedback on results, develop effective action plans, and establish short and long term goals to address opportunities for improvement as identified by the survey scores.

Patient responses to questions may range from “Always,” “Usually,” “Sometimes,” or “Never,” or whether an event happened or not (i.e., “Yes” or “No”). Information on the quality of care received by patients is collected through core topic questions grouped into composite and global rating sections of the survey instrument as follows:

1. Nephrologists’ or kidney doctors’ communication and care

2. Quality of dialysis center care and operation

  • Dialysis center staff communication and caring
  • Dialysis center staff’s professionalism and competence
  • Dialysis center’s operations

3. Provision of information to patients

4. Global ratings

The survey also includes questions on demographics, health status, treatment for conditions, and proxy respondent (if the patient received help completing the survey).

ICH-CAHPS is currently a clinical measure for the ESRD Quality Incentive Program (QIP). CMS began publicly reporting ICH CAHPS Survey results on the Dialysis Facility Compare (DFC) at http://www.medicare.gov/ in October 2016.