About PRIME Registry

What is PRIME Registry?

PRIME Registry is the largest national primary care Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) for Primary Care. PRIME Registry was established by the American Board of Family Medicine in 2016 to help provide family physicians and primary care clinicians a faster, easier way to evalu­ate practice performance.

PRIME includes a suite of built-in tools designed to improve primary care practice and patient out­comes, and reduce the burden of reporting for CMS pay­ment programs (like the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System and Primary Care First), at no extra cost.

Who Can Participate?

PRIME Registry is open to all primary care clinicians, including Family Physicians, General Internists, General Pediatricians, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants and many other clinical team members.

How it Works

Either via software interface (PULL) or file submission (PUSH), PRIME maps the data in your practice Electronic Health Record (EHR) system (also referred to as EMR) to the quality measures you choose, and calculates a performance score for each measure. Those scores and the performance trend details are then presented in an easy to use dashboard that allows clinicians and practices to view and track measure performance data at the practice, clinician and patient level.

Check EHR/EMR System Compatibility

Before enrolling, it’s important to check your Electronic Health Records/Electronic Medical Records System Compatibility. While PRIME’s technology partners, MRO, can work with most systems, using either a software interface PULL method, or by integrating files exported from the system (PUSH), there are some from which we just can’t get data, or can’t get quality data. Please note that some EHRs will charge your practice a separate connection fee. These fees are set at the sole discretion of the EHR, and may be collected by FIGmd on behalf of the EHR. Contact your EHR vendor for their schedule of fees. Check the list. Still have questions? Contact us!

Establish Primary Administrative Point of Contact

It’s important to designate one primary point of contact for the registry set up and ongoing maintenance—and having a back-up contact is a great idea too. This is ideally the person who completes the online registry enrollment and communicates with the MRO team throughout the onboarding, mapping and validation process.

(See After You Enroll, below)

Compile NPIs for Participating Clinicians

Registry participation is based on National Provider Identifier. At or shortly after signup, you will need to provide the NPI of each clinician who will be participating. 

Note: registry fees are based on NPI only. There is no additional fee for the administrator, if that person is different from the clinicians participating. 

Review and Sign the Agreements

There are two agreements that govern practice participation in the Registry: one with the ABFM and one with technology vendor MRO. Both agreements must be signed before participation enrollment is complete. A copy of these agreements is available upon request. Generally, the lead physician or chief executive of a practice should sign the agreements.

For Health Systems, Institutions and Large Organizations 

For practices that are part of larger organizations, institutions or health systems, you will need a signatory at the organizational leadership level to sign the agreements. We are happy to provide advance copies of the agreements to organizational leadership.

After You Enroll

Establishing EHR connection

The MRO team will reach out to you, normally via email, to give you instructions for making the connection to your EHR. That connection varies slightly depending on the EHR.

You will need to work with MRO to establish the best data extraction or data transfer schedule for your practice.

Initial Data Extract, Mapping and Initial Validation Expectations

Once connection is established, MRO will perform an initial test extract, or get a test file from your EHR and begin working with you map the data points in your EHR to the right measures. You’ll need to decide which measures you want to focus on as a practice or individual.

MRO will contact you to schedule a series of mapping meetings. These mapping meetings will occur via a web-based conference service.

Dashboard Access 

Once the mapping has begun and data is being pulled, you’ll be able to review the measures in your dashboard, and check to make sure the data look correct. It’s important to work with the MRO team to let them know if something doesn’t look right. They will work with you to find out why and correct any mapping issues. Be patient: this can take some time up front. It’s a complex process on the back end, but once the mapping is correct, you can proceed with confidence.

Dashboard Training

When you are given access to the dashboard, your FIGmd representative will give you a tour to orient you to the views, reports and features available. You can always reach out to your representative for a refresher tour, with a request to train a new administrator, or with specific questions.

Dashboard Refresh Expectations, Ongoing Data Validation

Once the data is mapped and validated, you can expect your data to be refreshed monthly, in most cases. The exception to this is the first quarter of each year, when the registry teams focus resources on updating measure specifications, and assisting practices with compliance reporting for CMS payment programs. Your first quarter data is usually available soon after the MIPS submission window closes.

Be sure to check your measures performance regularly, and make sure the data matches your expectations.

Training Resources

Monthly Training Webinars

We host live, interactive webinars each month. Register for the date and time that best fits your schedule. We’ll also contact you periodically with opportunities for special webinars featuring new features or important updates.

Scheduling Group Training

Contact the PRIME Team at prime@theabfm.org to schedule additional training for your practice or practice groups.

Still have questions? Contact Us!