LYNNE JETER

When Memphis-based QSource was unveiled as the Health Information Technology (HIT) Regional Extension Center (REC) for Tennessee as part of a $1 billion American Recovery & Reinvestment Act investment, some business leaders unfamiliar with its work believed it might be a new company formed to provide local technical assistance to effectively implement electronic health records (EHRs) and associated healthcare quality improvement.

Not so.

QSource, a not-for-profit organization, has been around since 1973, when it was established as the Mid-South Foundation for Medical Care (MSFMC) to serve as the Medicare Professional Standards Review Organization (PSRO) for West Tennessee.

In 2008, the company established the subsidiary, QSource of Arkansas, which serves as the therapy review and prior authorization for personal care contractor for the Arkansas Medicaid program. In this role, the therapy review department performs retrospective utilization and medical necessity reviews on speech, physical and occupational therapies provided to Medicaid recipients, under the age of 21, who reside in Arkansas. Based in Little Rock and staffed with Arkansans, QSource of Arkansas also assists physicians in implementing ePrescribing.

“QSource has been working with healthcare providers’ offices for almost four decades, yet we realize we’re not well known outside the community we serve, partly as a result of not marketing or branding QSource as an organization,” said QSource CEO Dawn FitzGerald. “We’ve been primarily funded through the federal government to provide quality improvement services free of charge, which has really not required us to brand and market who we are as an organization and the services we provide. There’s probably been some intentionality to the fact that we’re a—I like to call us¬—stealth organization. It’s hard to stick around for 30 years and have very few people really know all the services you provide, but we’ve done very well at that.”

To grow from a company deriving 95 percent of its revenues from federal government contracts to a diversified healthcare business leader attributing only 45 percent to state and federal government contracts, QSource experienced landmark changes:

• When the Commission on the Peer Review Improvement Act of 1982 dismantled the PSRO structure and authorized the use and quality control Peer Review Organization (PRO) program, MSFMC became the PRO for Tennessee.
• From 1986 until the state enacted TennCare, a managed care program, in 1994, QSource oversaw the state’s Medicaid program. The company contracted with CMS to serve as the national Disadvantaged Populations Support PRO, later known as the Underserved Quality Improvement Organization Support Center (UQIOSC).
• When CMS changed the mission of its contractors from PRO to QIO and launched a national public reporting initiative involving QIO oversight, the MSFMC name was changed to QSource to reflect the company’s mission.