Newswise — (Davenport, IOWA) – The Spine Institute for Quality™ (Spine IQ™) announced today that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) approved the Spine IQ Low Back Pain Registry, in collaboration with CECity, as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) for the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) program in 2016.

Spine IQ is a newly formed independent not-for-profit organization whose mission is to increase the patient-centered value of spine care by leveraging multi-disciplinary models, measures, education and research through the use of clinical data registries.

“Low-back pain is one of the most common reasons for primary care visits, affecting 80 percent of U.S. adults during their lifetime. The current opioid-use crisis underscores the fact that there is no silver bullet cure. It is time to develop and evaluate models of spine care delivery that focus on conservative options that are safe, effective and readily available,” said Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, Spine IQ’s chief executive officer. “QCDRs such as the Spine IQ Low Back Pain Registry provide the data needed to increase the quality and consistency of spine care delivery in ways that really matter to patients.”

The Registry includes 21 performance measures, comprised of 17 existing PQRS measures and four new measures that focus on patient satisfaction, change in pain intensity, change in pain interference and repeat X-ray imaging.

“We believe that there is a tremendous opportunity to increase the quality and value of spine care through the use of a primary spine care practitioner model," adds Anthony Hamm, DC, FACO, Spine IQ’s chief clinical officer and chairman of the board. “The Spine IQ Low Back Pain Registry is the only QCDR designed specifically for use by primary spine practitioners, including doctors of chiropractic, who focus on conservative care of patients with spine-related disorders.”

The Spine Institute for Quality (Spine IQ) is headquartered in Davenport, Iowa. For more information about Spine IQ initiatives and how to pre-register for the Spine IQ Low Back Pain QCDR, visit our website at SpineIQ.org.

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