The purpose of this Funding Opportunity is to provide funding assistance in the form of cooperative agreements to entities to develop, improve, update, or expand quality measures for use in the Quality Payment Program.

Recognizing the benefits of measure development by external stakeholders with

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specific knowledge of clinician and patient perspectives and needs, the funding assistance of these cooperative agreements is specifically designated for entities external both to CMS and to other federal agencies.

Such entities may include, but are not limited to, clinical specialty societies, clinical professional organizations, patient advocacy organizations, educational institutions, independent research organizations, health systems, and other entities engaged in quality measure development.

These external entities provide the needed medical specialty and patient perspectives to lead or support the measure development priorities of the CMS Quality Measure Development Plan and, accordingly, to advance the Quality Payment Program measure portfolio.

Specifically, collaboration with and support for these entities in measure development will assist CMS in addressing such essential topics as:
clinician engagement, consumer-informed decisions, critical measure gaps, quality measure alignment, and efficient data collection that minimizes health care provider burden.