March 20, 2026
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) encourages you to submit quality and cost measures for consideration for future years of the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). The MIPS Annual Call for Quality and Cost Measures process allows clinicians, professional associations, and medical societies that represent clinicians, researchers, consumer groups, and others to identify and submit measures. Currently, CMS is accepting submissions for:
- Measures for the quality performance category
- Measures for the cost performance category
The 2026 MIPS Annual Call for Quality and Cost Measures is from March 19, 2026, to May 7, 2026. Measure developers can submit quality and cost measures for CMS’ consideration by completing the required fields and submitting applicable measure specifications and all supporting data files via the CMS Measures Under Consideration Entry/Review Information Tool (MERIT) by 8:00 PM ET on May 7, 2026.
Candidate measures that are submitted via CMS MERIT will be considered for potential inclusion on the Measures Under Consideration (MUC) List, which is part of the pre-rulemaking process. The timeframe for candidate measures to be considered for inclusion in MIPS is a two-year process. Only candidate quality and cost measures submitted by May 7, 2026, will be considered for inclusion in the MIPS quality or cost performance categories. Measures selected for inclusion on the MUC List would be considered for MIPS implementation in PY2028.
CMS MERIT and Pre-Rulemaking Resources
Please refer to the CMS MERIT Quick Start Guide for Submitters for guidance on using the tool. For this document and the most up-to-date information regarding pre-rulemaking, visit the Pre-Rulemaking Webpage.
For more information about the pre-rulemaking process, inquiries about measures submitted for the most recent cycle, or questions on other general measure topics, please email MMSsupport@battelle.org.
Quality Measure Information
CMS is looking for fully developed and tested measures that address measurement gaps, needs, and priority topic areas, as defined by the agency. For further information, please review the 2026 MIPS Annual Call for Quality Measures Fact Sheet available soon on the Quality Payment Program (QPP) Resource Library.
In addition, CMS is particularly interested in quality measures for specialties not yet represented by a MIPS Value Pathway (MVP) or MVPs with fewer quality measures available for reporting. For further information, please review the 2026 MVP Needs and Priorities document in the MVP Development Resources.
Cost Measure Information
CMS will consider cost measures that focus on specialties with limited episode-based cost measures and address high-priority clinical topics for future MVP development. It’s imperative that the submission of cost measures include complete measure specifications and the required testing information.
Review the 2026 MIPS Annual Call for Cost Measures Fact Sheet for detailed information regarding cost measures, which will be available soon on the QPP Resource Library.