February 14, 2020 – The American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) and the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) announced the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have approved the ImageGuide Registry as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) for 2020. The designation as a QCDR allows the ImageGuide Registry to submit provider data to meet reporting requirements under the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) for the 2020 reporting year. Successful participation in MIPS will allow physicians to avoid an automatic negative payment adjustment on all Medicare receivables.
The #ImageGuideRegistry has been recognized annually as a QCDR since its launch in 2015 as the first national registry for non-invasive cardiac imaging. A joint collaboration between ASNC and ASE, the ImageGuide Registry supports both nuclear cardiology and echocardiography laboratories under separate modules, ImageGuideNuclear and ImageGuideEcho. The two modules provide the ability to assess performance and develop the tools necessary to improve patient safety and outcomes, practice transformation, and innovation through ongoing data collection and quality improvement. Laboratories that participate in the Registry will not only be able to satisfy Medicare regulatory requirements, but also improve institutional quality, benchmark performance against a national aggregate, and leverage research opportunities within the field of cardiovascular imaging. Moreover, the Registry enables users to demonstrate adherence to appropriate use criteria, an increasingly important mandate of healthcare policy.
“The continued recognition of the ImageGuide Registry as a QCDR highlights the Registry’s commitment to, and impact on, the practice and evolution of cardiac imaging and care for ASNC and ASE members,” said Peter L. Tilkemeier, M.D., MASNC, chair of the ImageGuide Registry Oversight Committee, Greenville Health System, chair of nedicine, Greenville, SC.
“ASE is pleased to once again join ASNC in receipt of this designation for the sixth year in a row. Upholding this standard of excellence while continuing to provide the maximum benefit to both ASE and ASNC participants is a tradition we are proud to uphold as a Registry,” said Sherif Nagueh, M.D., FASE, chair of the ImageGuideEcho Registry Committee, chair in clinical cardiology, Houston Methodist.
ASNC and ASE annually develop measures specifically for nuclear cardiology and echocardiography that capture a greater level of granularity on cardiac imaging than traditional quality measures. In 2020, ASNC and ASE will be offering 19 performance measures to facilitate physician reporting, which include 15 measures applicable to echocardiography and 13 measures applicable to nuclear cardiology. Nine of these measures are dual-modality, which allow physicians to report on nuclear cardiology and/or echocardiography within a single measure. Participants can measure, benchmark, and analyze performance across multiple sites to achieve quality improvement at the provider and laboratory level, while driving broader adherence to best practices.
For more information on enrollment and 2020 performance measures, visit ImageGuideRegistry.org.
May 21, 2026 
