The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposed rule on June 8 governing CMS release of standardized extracts of Medicare claims data. The proposed rule implements section 10332 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requiring CMS to release such data extracts to qualified organizations to support analysis and measurement of provider performance. Qualified organizations must demonstrate the capability to combine the Medicare extracts with Medicaid and other claims data and to generate statistically valid reports using recognized performance measures such as those endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF).  Statistical validity encompasses case-mix and severity adjustments among providers, appropriate provider peer groupings, methods for handling statistical outliers, and other analytic techniques to ensure that the data are meaningful and useful to consumers, providers, health plans, researchers, and other stakeholders. Qualified organizations may include private organizations as well as public organizations such as state departments of health and human services. The proposed rule sets forth the application process and deadlines. Comments on the proposed rule are due on August 8. The initial application deadline for qualified organizations is expected to be March 31, 2012.