Hello, Thank you for your inquiry about CMS2v10: Preventive Care and Screening: Screening for Depression and Follow-Up Plan. We are not able to provide guidance on how your practice should or should not map PHQ-9 scores in your EHR, so we suggest consulting with your EHR vendor and clinical partners to determine an approach to mapping. However, we can confirm that PHQ-9 is an appropriate standardized depression screening tool that meets numerator requirements, and information on how to use the PHQ-9 screening tool can be found at the following link: https://www.phqscreeners.com/images/sites/g/files/g10016261/f/201412/instructions.pdf . We encourage providers to use this resource for instructions on how to interpret PHQ-9 scores and to use their clinical judgement, keeping in mind that this measure looks at the most recent completed depression screening to determine if positive and if appropriate follow-up was documented.

I am referencing JIRA ticket CQM-4599 for this question. My organization participates as an MSSP ACO, we will begin submitting eCQMs as an APP in 2022. Since we have always reported via web-interface, QPP has previously (PY 2019, PY 2020) instructed for PREV-12 Depression Screening & Follow-up that a provider must determine/document if a PHQ screening is negative or positive, regardless of score; auditors cannot assume a low or 0 PHQ score is negative (although during 2019 & 2020 reporting, QPP did allow for 2018 allowances to assume that a PHQ score of 0 is negative). The solution response to CQM-4599 encourages providers to use https://www.phqscreeners.com/images/sites/g/files/g10016261/f/201412/instructions.pdf for instructions on how to interpret PHQ-9 scores. My questions are: 1. for 2022 reporting year, since the above link lists the following interpretation, may we map our EHR to assume/document that a PHQ-9 score of 0-4 is negative, so as to not prompt the provider to address? 0 - 4: None-minimal depression Proposed treatment action: None 2. May we map our EHR to assume/document that a PHQ-2 or PHQ-9 score of 0 is negative, so as to not prompt the provider to address? 3. May we map our EHR to assume/document that a PHQ-9 score >5 is positive to prompt the provider to document a follow-up action?