I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2749 
To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for a transition 
to a new voluntary quality reporting program for physicians and other 
health professionals. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 15, 2007 
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee (for himself and Mr. SHADEGG) introduced the fol-
lowing bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Com-
merce, and in addition to the Committee on Ways and Means, for a pe-
riod to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for con-
sideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the com-
mittee concerned 
A BILL 
To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide 
for a transition to a new voluntary quality reporting 
program for physicians and other health professionals. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Voluntary Medicare 
Quality Reporting Act of 2007’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress makes the following find-
ings: 
(1) The health care system of the United States 
is the world’s most advanced health care system and 
delivers health care according to the highest quality 
standards. Physicians and other health professionals 
are committed to providing the highest quality of 
health care to beneficiaries under the Medicare pro-
gram. 
(2) Physicians have been actively engaged with 
the American Medical Association’s Physician Con-
sortium for Performance Improvement in the devel-
opment of evidence-based and clinically valid meas-
ures in order to improve the quality of health care 
and have also worked closely with the Centers for 
Medicare & Medicaid Services (‘‘CMS’’) in assuring 
the successful implementation of the Physician Vol-
untary Reporting Program (‘‘PVRP’’) developed to 
measure and evaluate quality of health care. 
(3) Physicians are actively collaborating with 
consensus organizations in their efforts to— 
(A) improve the quality of health care 
through the specification of quality measures 
for services; and 
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(B) develop a rational system for col-
lecting, aggregating, and reporting data across 
numerous public and private insurance pro-
grams in the least burdensome way. 
(4) Quality measures for covered professional 
services (as defined in section 1848(k)(3)(A) of the 
Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395w–4(k)(3)(A)) 
must be— 
(A) evidence-based and clinically valid; 
(B) regularly updated to reflect current 
medical practice; 
(C) specialty specific; and 
(D) developed by relevant medical and 
other health professional specialty societies with 
expertise in the area of health care involved. 
(5) All quality measures for covered profes-
sional services (as so defined) should be pilot-tested 
in a variety of practice settings and across all rel-
evant medical and other health professional special-
ties before they are included in a value-based pur-
chasing system for such services. 
(6) Physicians must be actively engaged in all 
aspects of the development and implementation of 
an effective quality reporting and value-based pur-
chasing system for covered professional services (as 
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so defined). The development process for such sys-
tem must be transparent to all physicians and ad-
here to a consistent set of rules. 
(7) Any effective quality reporting system for 
covered professional services (as so defined) must 
recognize the actual health information technology 
and administrative costs physicians and other health 
professionals incur for participating in the system. 
(8) Any quality reporting program for covered 
professional services (as so defined) should focus on 
meaningful improvements in patient care rather 
than requiring physicians to report for the sake of 
reporting. 
(9) Most physicians and other health profes-
sionals have not had any experience in quality re-
porting and lack the necessary health information 
technology and administrative infrastructures to par-
ticipate in a value-based purchasing system for phy-
sicians’ services. 
(10) The 6-month program under section 
1848(k) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 
1395w–4(k)), as added by section 101(b) of division 
B of the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 
(Public Law 109–432; 120 Stat. 2975), the 2007 
Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (‘‘PQRI’’), 
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does not provide a sufficient amount of time to test 
and evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness 
of this new reporting system. Therefore, it is pre-
mature to implement a permanent Medicare quality 
reporting system for physicians in 2008. 
SEC. 3. TRANSITION TO NEW VOLUNTARY MEDICARE QUAL-
ITY REPORTING PROGRAM. 
(a) EVALUATING THE TRANSITIONAL QUALITY RE-
PORTING SYSTEM ESTABLISHED FOR 2007.— 
(1) EVALUATION.—The Secretary of Health 
and Human Services shall evaluate the quality re-
porting system under paragraph (1) of section 
1848(k) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 
1395w–4(k)) (as added by section 101(b) of division 
B of the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 
(Public Law 109–432)), as applied for 2007 using 
the quality measures described in paragraph (2)(A) 
of such section to determine the following: 
(A) The extent to which such quality meas-
ures were valid, clinically relevant, practicable, 
and not overly burdensome. 
(B) The percentage of eligible professionals 
(as defined in paragraph (3)(B) of such section) 
in each category of eligible professionals de-
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