January 07, 2021

ACR NRDR Approved as QCDR for 2021

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has officially approved the American College of Radiology® (ACR®) National Radiology Data Registry (NRDR) as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) for the 2021 Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) performance year. This is the seventh year in a row that the ACR has been approved for CMS reporting.

The ACR QCDR will offer 49 MIPS measures and 14 ACR-developed QCDR measures. Seven of these QCDR measures were newly added in 2020 and are available through General Radiology Improvement Database registry reporting. These seven new measures are:

  • ACRad 36: Incidental Coronary Artery Calcification Reported on Chest CT.
  • ACRad 37: Interpretation of CT Pulmonary Angiography for Pulmonary Embolism.
  • ACRad 38: Use of Low Dose Cranial CT or MRI Examinations for Patients with Ventricular Shunts.
  • ACRad 39: Use of Low Dose CT Studies for Adults with Suspicion of Urolithiasis or Nephrolithiasis.
  • ACRad 40: Use of Structured Reporting in Prostate MRI.
  • ACRad 41: Use of Quantitative Criteria for Oncologic FDG PET Imaging.
  • ACRad 42: Surveillance Imaging for Liver Nodules <10mm in Patients at Risk for Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

The ACR encourages users to adopt these new measures, as more users reporting them will ensure that they receive a benchmark and are eligible for full scoring during future MIPS years.

For more information about MIPS reporting using the ACR NRDR QCDR, please visit acr.org/qcdr.