iQIES Connectivity: What Post-Acute Providers Need to Know Now

A new year on the horizon means changes are on the way for skilled nursing providers. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will launch the Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System (iQIES) in the early part of 2023.

The internet-based system will be used for all submissions and communications to and from CMS. It will allow for streamlined workflows and it can be accessed at any time from any device. 

The new system will also safeguard Protected Health Information (PHI) that’s sent to CMS. That’s good news considering what researchers with HIPAA Journal have revealed. The research team noticed an upward trend in data breaches over the past 10 years. It reported 347 healthcare data breaches of 500 or more records for the first half of 2022 alone. This is what CMS hopes to circumvent with iQIES.

The effort to provide a more secure reporting method should be welcome news to provider organizations. There are steps though that those groups must take to comply with the new iQIES system. Providers must appoint a Provider Security Official (PSO) who will go through a background check to validate their identity. Ideally, each provider would appoint two persons to the position to cover any gaps.

PSO appointment has already started in several states. Some providers have missed deadlines for appointing a PSO. If they fall further behind, they will risk missing MDS data submission requirements/deadlines. CMS hopes to have PSO appointments completed in November.

Simple, a Netsmart software solution offering data analytics and workflow automation for skilled nursing providers, is working to streamline the process and protect client data. It’s been preparing for the update now for a few years and has already tested the iQIES system for several home health agencies submitting OASIS data. Simple is now providing iQIES education and support for its SNF clients.

For more information about iQIES click here. You can also register for a free on-demand webinar from Simple explaining what you need to know about the transition.