Thank you for inquiring about version 15 of the Preventive Care and Screening: Screening for Depression and Follow-Up Plan eCQM (relevant for the 2026 performance period). 1. Beginning with the v15 measure, there is an explicit allowance for either an active or newly prescribed depression medication. Therefore, if the medication list shows that the patient is already being treated pharmacologically (and it overlaps the qualifying encounter), there is no need for further documentation or mapping. If the patient has an existing referral for depression (no medications), and there are no changes to the treatment plan, then please refer to known issue EKI-22 (you may map to either SNOMED CT 410234004 (Management of mental health treatment (procedure)) or SNOMED CT 410232000 (Mental health treatment assessment (procedure)). 2. Any questions about EHR automation should be addressed with your EHR and/or measure reporting vendor. 3. Please note that the measure is not prescriptive as to which tools may be used to screen for depression, but rather only requires that providers use “A normalized and validated depression screening tool developed for the patient population in which it is being utilized” (eCQM Definition section). You should review the scoring guidance for the tools used at your facility to determine the threshold for mild depression or above, as CMS does not provide guidance on score interpretation for this eCQM. Also, refer to the measure’s Guidance section which indicates “This measure does not require documentation of a specific score, just whether results of the normalized and validated depression screening tool used are considered positive or negative.” The patient's responses to the initial depression screening, even if only mild depression based on scoring, require a follow-up (non-screening or assessment) action within 2 days of the encounter. The determination of whether follow-up is necessary is based on the age-appropriate, standardized, and validated depression screening tool’s established thresholds for depression (mild or above). The measure also allows providers to exercise their clinical judgment to determine the intensity of the follow-up intervention ordered or performed, which could be as simple as exercise therapy (SNOMED CT 229065009) for mild depression.