In August 2022, CMS held an open door forum informing providers of the upcoming rollout of the Minimum Data Set (MDS) submission transition to the Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System (iQIES) in early 2023. This system was first piloted in May 2021 for Home Health Agencies. CMS is now working to transition all state agencies and CMS locations to the new internet-based system. The iQIES will consolidate and replace functionality from the Quality Improvement and Evaluation System (QIES), Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reports (CASPER), and Automated Survey Process Environment (ASPEN) legacy systems.
To comply with federal security mandates, CMS is initiating new security requirements for access control to CMS Quality Systems through Remote Identity Proofing (RIDP) via the Healthcare Quality Information Systems (HCQIS) Access, Roles and Profile Management System. To gain access, all current and future provider users will need to create an account and establish credentials in the HCQIS Access Roles and Profile System (HARP), which is a secure identity management portal provided by CMS.
This transition process includes a new requirement for providers to identify an individual to act as the Provider’s Security Official (PSO). The PSO will need to be approved by CMS and will have the responsibility of approving all iQIES users for the individual provider organization, including any vendors that may be accessing iQIES on behalf of the provider. CMS recommends that providers designate at least two PSOs to ensure someone will be available to approve/reject any iQIES access requests for the provider. Users wanting to submit MDS data and for other purposes after the transition to iQIES in 2023 will not be granted access unless the PSO approves the request.
CMS has begun reaching out to provider organizations with more details to initiate this process through a waved approach. Providers will be contacted according to
CMS Region as follows:
- August 15 – Regions 1 & 2
- August 29 – Regions 3, 9, & 10
- September 12 – Region 4
- September 26 – Region 6
- October 17 – Region 5
- October 31 – Regions 7 & 8
CMS expects to complete initial contacts for Security Officials by the end of October and begin general on-boarding communication by mid-November.
Prior to receiving the registration instructions letter from CMS, AHCA recommends that providers review the following CMS iQIES resources to become familiar with the initiative: