Diabetes measure: Is an A1c result from a home test kit acceptable for reporting?
A1c values used for measures are those in which the lab results are dated and stored in the electronic medical record (EMR). With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, collection for labs used for routine monitoring of conditions required some creative solutions. One example of an alternative to in-office lab collection is the mailing of a lab kit to the patient to collect a capillary sample, which is mailed back to the lab to determine an A1c result. If the provider is comfortable with this method and results are stored in the EMR, it is acceptable for use in measure calculation.
Another method is a monitor that a patient can purchase using a strip, fingerstick sample and then an A1c reading which is displayed on the device. We are not aware that A1c obtained by this method are being stored as lab values in the EMR. However, if there is a point in the future where this is accepted by providers as a valid and reliable method for capturing A1c and enter dated results as lab values in the EMR, those lab results would be acceptable as well.