Annual Cognitive Health Assessment for patients 65 years and older

Measure Purpose: Ensure patients are assessed routinely after the age of 65 for cognitive impairment

The numerator: Patients who had cognition assessed* within the measurement period

is divided by

The denominator: patients aged 65 and older

*see measure specifications for comprehensive list of validated objective tools

Exclusions are removed from the denominator:

• Prior diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
• Prior diagnosis of dementia (see measure specifications for complete diagnostic codes)
• Patient declines cognitive health assessment on date of encounter
• On date of encounter, patient is not able to participate in a cognitive health assessment
• Patient previously had a cognitive assessment in the measurement period and prior results noted

Key Phrases

Examples of key phrases you could use to meet the measure include:

• MoCA [OR SLUMS, MMSE, MIS, CDR, Mini-Cog, SAGE, or neuropsychological] results reviewed
• Order for referral for neuropsychological assessment

Measure Calculation Example

Dr. Bautista has office encounters for 100 patients between January 1 and December 31 with patients 65 and older.  Ten patients were previously diagnosed with MCI or dementia. These ten patients are removed from the eligible population and the initial denominator is 90 (100-10). 

Dr. Bautista conducted Mini-Mental State Examination on 43 patients. This is the numerator.

Three patients declined assessment and three patients had prior cognitive assessment results in their records from primary care visits. These six patients (3+3) are removed from the denominator as exclusions.

Quality of patient care = 43/(90-6). Dr. Bautista has a score of 51.1% for this measure.