Acumen Measure Survey

To support the delivery of high-quality, low-cost breast cancer screening, Acumen, LLC developed three quality measures and one cost measure that assess clinician performance in breast cancer screening and diagnosis. Acumen reached out to the ACR to request nominations for the measure development expert panel that resulted in the inclusion of ACR-recommended breast imaging radiologists. Patients and other clinicians also supported the measure development.

Most breast imaging radiologists will be familiar with the Acumen-proposed quality measures because they mirror yearly clinical audit measures. The difference between the Acumen quality measures and clinical audit measures is that Acumen's measure data will be collected through Medicare claims, and the performance calculations differ from the audit, which uses clinical data.

Acumen plans to submit these measures to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Annual Call for Measures for future inclusion in their Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), which evaluates healthcare quality for physicians. The measure development process incorporates input from clinical expert panels, which include leaders from the breast imaging community, patient and family engagement, and research using empirical analyses.

The American College of Radiology (ACR) is collecting feedback on the measures’ structure to determine their feasibility in practice and learn whether these measures, when used together, would establish a practice’s value.