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Presentation

Development and Approval Process for Dermatology Performance Measures

Description

The transcript explains how dermatology performance measures are developed and approved, mainly through the American Academy of Dermatology’s Performance Measure Committee (PMC). The process begins with identifying gaps in care through literature review and data analysis, then forming diverse workgroups of disease experts, measure-development specialists, and often patient input to draft measures. Measures have historically focused on process and structure, but CMS increasingly prefers outcome, cost, and patient-reported outcome measures, though cost measures are especially difficult to create. After drafting, measures undergo peer review within AAD committees and councils, then testing for validity, feasibility, and reliability before formal approval by the Board and submission to Medicare/CMS. The speaker also describes the complex national review path through CMS, the Partnership for Quality Measurement, harmonization, and periodic review. Finally, the talk distinguishes between reporting pathways such as MIPS, qualified registries, and qualified clinical data registries (QCDRs), highlighting Dataderm as dermatology’s QCDR and noting that QCDR measures can be more specific but require annual reapproval and can sometimes later transition into MIPS/MACRA measures.

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Conclusions

Dermatology performance measures are developed through a structured, multi-step process that begins with identifying gaps in care and ends with national approval.
Effective measures require collaboration among disease experts, measure-development specialists, and patient advocates to ensure clinical relevance and usability.
CMS increasingly prioritizes outcome, cost, and patient-reported measures over simpler process or structure measures.
Measure creation is difficult and time-consuming because each measure must define its population, methodology, benchmarks, and supporting evidence clearly.
Before submission, measures must undergo peer review and testing for validity, feasibility, and reliability.
The national approval pathway involves multiple review layers, including CMS, harmonization processes, and the Partnership for Quality Measurement.
Measures that are already fully optimized or “topped out” are less likely to remain valuable for ongoing quality improvement.
Qualified Clinical Data Registries like DataDerm are important because they allow specialty-specific measure development and testing outside the standard MIPS pathway.
DataDerm helps the AAD identify care gaps more actively and can serve as a pathway for measures to later enter broader Medicare reporting programs.
Because final approval depends heavily on CMS and other external bodies, specialty societies must be strategic and adaptable when designing performance measures.

Quality ID #410: Psoriasis: Clinical Response to Systemic Medications.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Quality measure resources / Quality Payment Program measures list.
National Quality Forum–endorsed measures not part of MIPS can be included, now called Partnership for Quality Measurement.