Acceptable Blood Pressure Readings for Quality Measures

Please see the following clarifications for acceptable blood pressure readings for the clinical quality measures. Guidance comes from interpretation of NCQA’s HEDIS Controlling High Blood Pressure measure. 

May 2022: NCQA recently removed the requirement that a blood pressure taken by the patient needs to be recorded in the context of a visit. This allows almost any ambulatory outpatient blood pressure to be used to calculate the numerator; see lists below for more information. 

Accepted Blood Pressure Readings:

• Taken during an office visit or in a clinic or outpatient setting (e.g., nurse blood pressure check)
• Taken by the patient on a digital device and documented in the medical record. Blood Pressures can be reported by the patient during a virtual or telephone visit or via e-visit or patient portal and documented into the EMR by the provider (clinic staff). 
• Values electronically transmitted from a remote monitoring device directly to an EMR.
• Taken by an outside provider if the result is documented in the reporting medical group's patient record and is the most recent test result during the measurement period

Not Accepted Blood Pressure Readings:

• Taken during an acute inpatient stay or an ED visit
• Taken during an outpatient visit which was for the sole purpose of having a diagnostic test or surgical procedure performed 
• Obtained the same day as a major diagnostic or surgical procedure