Physician Quality Reporting System

The Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), originally known as the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, is a federal physician quality reporting program overseen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). PQRS enables eligible physicians to earn incentive payments equal to a percentage of their total allowed Medicare charges by satisfactorily submitting information on a designated set of quality measures. Detailed information on the program is available on the CMS website.

In 2011, eligible physicians who met CMS-specified MOC requirements could earn an additional bonus payment of 0.5 percent, on top of their base PQRS incentive payment. ABIM chose not to participate in the PQRS MOC program for the 2011 reporting year due to the complexity of the rules. A decision on ABIM's participation for the 2012 reporting year will be announced shortly.

Note: While participating in the PQRS program alone is not sufficient for credit toward the requirements of Maintenance of Certification (MOC), you can complete the Self-Directed PIM using data you collect for PQRS and submit it for practice performance points.