Accuracy of measure population on RY2016  Can CMS publishes value sets that include both 2016 and 2017 codes during times when customers may be reporting on one year’s value sets and building/testing on another year’s value sets? Or release more frequent updates of value sets, so that customers aren’t stuck in the in-between of preparing for one reporting year while still reporting on another? We are preparing for RY2016 submission, and also in the process of building out RY2017 measures. Because some of the RxNorm codes for RY2016 are no longer active for RY2017 based on the value sets published by CMS, patients who are supposed to be included in the measure population, now are failing the measure. One example: ERX 28645 – the medication record for the statin prescribed at discharge, our RxNorm codes have already been updated to the 2017 content through a med load from FDB, and some of the RxNorm codes that are in the 2016 value sets have been overwritten with RxNorm codes that are in the 2017 value sets. This cause patients who are on this medication not be included in measure population as logic indicated.

​Thank you for your question and for reporting this issue. We believe this was addressed last fall in an addendum that updated the coding. This is something we continue to evaluate to ensure the most accurate codes are available. If this does not address your concerns you may need to discuss the process for updating codes in your system further with your EHR vendor.