Certain guidelines have special cases in which a patient who meets specific criteria may be subtracted from the Eligible Population (denominator) when calculating the performance percentage.
Denominator Exceptions vs. Denominator Exclusions
- Denominator exclusion criteria are evaluated before checking if a patient meets the numerator criteria
- A patient who qualifies for the denominator exclusion is always removed from the denominator
- – Denominator exception criteria are only evaluated if the patient does not meet the numerator criteria
- Patients who do not meet numerator criteria but do meet denominator exception criteria (e.g. medical reason for not
performing a screening) would be removed from the denominator
- Patients who do not meet numerator criteria but do meet denominator exception criteria (e.g. medical reason for not
Performance Rate Calculation
The performance rate is defined as:
Performance Rate = Numerator / (Eligible Population– Exclusion – Exception)
While the number of patients in these special classes is small in most cases, there are a few guidelines that have large numbers in the exclusions and/or exceptions class.