The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hosted a special expanded Open Door Forum on April 24, 2006, to publicly announce, support and promote high-value pharmacy services, including measurement approaches, through a stakeholder-led Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA).
In the months leading up to this date, CMS was working with leading pharmacy and health care organizations to create PQA as a collaborative alliance, where key stakeholders would agree on strategies for measuring performance at the pharmacy level.
CMS Administrator Mark McClellan kicked off the forum by outlining his vision for pharmacy’s role in value-based care and the need for supporting measures.
Bruce Roberts, CEO of NCPA, praised McClellan for “his recognition of the value that pharmacists can have in the healthcare system and the need to be paid for their services.”
PQA’s critically important work to “optimize health by advancing the quality of medication use” continues today. At the 2026 PQA Annual Meeting in Baltimore, May 12-14, we will recognize the people, milestones and achievements that have defined the organization’s 20 years of success.
Join us for the celebration and insights on what’s happening today and in the future to advance quality.
Below you can read McClellan’s prepared remarks from PQA’s announcement.
CMS Administrator Mark B. McClellan
prepared remarks
PQA Press Event
April 2006
I am very pleased to announce the establishment of the Pharmacy Quality Alliance. Similar to the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance that we worked with health plans and health professionals and other stakeholders to establish, the mission of the Pharmacy Quality Alliance will be to improve health care quality and patient safety, and to reduce overall health care costs.
The PQA will use a collaborative process in which key stakeholders agree on a strategy for measuring performance at the pharmacy level; collecting data in the least burdensome way; and reporting meaningful information to consumers plans providers and other stakeholders to inform choices and improve health outcomes. While the primary goal of the Pharmacy Quality Alliance will be to develop strategies for defining and measuring pharmacy performance, we also expect that this could lead to new pharmacy payment models for optimizing patient health outcomes. And at Medicare, we are very interested in supporting the testing and development of those models.
Thanks to the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance and the leadership and hard work of the health plans and many physician organizations, we’ve made considerable progress creating consensus around meaningful measures of the quality of physician care. We believe that through the Pharmacy Quality Alliance, we can make similar breakthrough progress and the development of pharmacy care quality measures, and in the development of better support for high-quality pharmacy care
Paying more for higher quality and less costly care is a critical priority for CMS: just as providing high quality care and avoiding preventable complications and cost is a high priority for the nation’s health professionals. Pharmacists and other health professionals want to do everything in their power to get the best care to their patients. When we provide consumers with better information about quality, and when we provide more financial support for better quality and lower costs, we enable health professionals to get the resources to do what they do best.
This is part of a key, fundamental strategy in Medicare and Medicaid. For 40 years, Medicare and Medicaid have focused on paying bills, without really taking into account whether what we are buying makes beneficiaries’ health care better. The result is that too often we focus on controlling costs only by reducing payment rates – rather than paying more for the best care. Focusing on spending health care dollars better, rather than just on reducing payment rates to reduce health care costs, deserves strong support from Medicare and we are going to make it happen.
Pharmacists and pharmacies have already demonstrated the great value they provide in the implementation of the Medicare drug benefit. They have also shown they can add much more – helping people find lower cost drugs like generics, helping people with multiple illnesses understand how to use their medications, improving compliance. All of these things can improve quality of care and reduce overall health care costs. This helps us get to a health care system that provides the right care for every person every time.
Pharmacists have more to offer to improve quality and reduce costs in our overall health care system, but that may require changes in the way pharmacy care is financed and delivered. The establishment of the PQA is an important step toward a pharmacy business model that rewards real value delivered rather than just volume of prescriptions dispensed.
I am confident that through the collaborative efforts of stakeholders in the health care enterprise and initiatives such as the Pharmacy Quality Alliance, we can promote pharmacy quality as an essential element of a health care system that delivers high value benefits while avoiding costly errors, and one that helps our health care system innovate and stay affordable.
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PQA’s 20th anniversary celebrations are made possible in part by the generous support of Lilly USA, Merck, Pfizer, PQS by Innovaccer, AdhereHealth, Centene, Elevance Health, Humana, Kroger Health, Outcomes, Inmar, McKesson, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, American Pharmacists Association, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, National Association of Specialty Pharmacy. PQA does not endorse, recommend or favor any product, service or organization that is a sponsor.