PsychPRO Featured in Session on Measurement-Based Care

APA members attending this year’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans will want to stop by APA Central in the Exhibit Hall and enroll in PsychPRO, APA’s national mental health registry.

One of APA’s most successful endeavors, PsychPRO is approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) for behavioral health specialists. Membership in PsychPRO has steadily grown since its launch in 2016, with over 1,000 psychiatrists and mental health professionals now on board and receiving feedback to evaluate their quality performance and meet quality reporting requirements.

Today, the registry is poised for more growth with an expanded platform that offers increased reporting capabilities and a new pricing structure that encourages participation from a greater number of mental health professionals.

Importantly, as a QCDR, the registry is helping APA develop outcome measures for value-based payment programs that accurately reflect what psychiatrists and other mental health professionals actually do in their clinical work with patients. To do so, participation by as many psychiatrists as possible is critical.

Participation also offers psychiatrists a way to automatically meet their requirements for Maintenance of Certification Part IV, as well as meet reporting requirements under Medicare’s Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), to avoid reimbursement penalties and potentially achieve bonuses.

At a special Annual Meeting session titled “Moving Practice to Measurement-Based Care,” leaders in integrated care—Eric Vanderlip, M.D., M.P.H., and Kathryn Ridout, M.D., Ph.D.—will demonstrate how PsychPRO is making measurement-based care easy at the provider, practice, and system levels. Speakers at the session include Andrew Carlo, M.D., and Cecilia Livesey, M.D.

Measurement-based care is an evidence-based strategy to improve outcomes in the treatment of psychiatric disorders and comorbidities. Principles of measurement-based care include routine and systematic symptom measurement using evidence-based instruments, timely sharing of results with patients, and the incorporation of outcome measurement into real-time medical decision-making.

In recent years, emerging standards from The Joint Commission and the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission, as well as payer pressure to tie reimbursement to outcome improvement, have placed increased emphasis on measurement-based care in standard clinical management. Session speakers will outline practical strategies to meet key Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) quality measures and will invite participants to discuss how measurement-based care can advance mental health practice broadly.

“I urge members to visit the PsychPRO booth and attend this important session on how the registry can help psychiatrists achieve better outcomes for their patients,” said APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A. “PsychPRO is truly one of APA’s most important and successful projects, providing tangible benefits for psychiatrists and their patients.” ■

“Moving Practice to Measurement-Based Care” will be held Sunday, May 22, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.