On Nov. 1, CMS finalized the 2025 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment System rule, confirming a 2.83% physician pay cut.
CMS also updated the ASC quality reporting program for 2025, according to a Nov. 1 news release.
Here are five updates CMS is adopting for its ASCQR program in 2025:
1. The Facility Commitment to Health Equity measure assesses a facility's commitment to health equity across five domains: equity as a strategic priority, data collection, data analysis, quality improvement and leadership engagement.
2. The Screening for Social Drivers of Health measure starts with a voluntary reporting period in 2025 with mandatory reporting beginning in 2026. This measure involves screening patients for health-related social needs in five areas: food insecurity, housing instability, transportation needs, utility difficulties and interpersonal safety.
3. The Screen Positive Rate for Social Drivers of Health measure begins with voluntary reporting in 2025 with mandatory reporting beginning in 2026. This measure reflects the rate of patients who screened positive for the social drivers of health outlined in the screening measure.
4. These measures are considered "cross-program proposals," according to the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, since they were also proposed for the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting and Rural Emergency Hospital Quality Reporting programs.
5. CMS responded to feedback by adding case minimums for specialty measure reporting, defined as measures related to clinical procedures performed by a subset of ASCs. CMS also removed specialty measures with zero cases from attestation requirements for surgery centers and will now verify case counts using claims data to determine specialty measures for individual ASC reporting.