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Accessibility Statement

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is committed to ensuring that the Quality Payment Program (QPP) is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability.

The Quality Payment Program (QPP) aims to comply with §1194.21, §1194.22, §1194.31 and §1194.41 of the United States' 1998 Amendment to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. These standards are intended to make web content and applications more accessible for people with disabilities.

Reporting issues with Accessibility

CMS welcomes comments on how to improve the Quality Payment Program (QPP) website's accessibility for users with disabilities. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of the Quality Payment Program (QPP) website, or should you experience any difficulty in accessing this web application, please contact the Quality Payment Program (QPP) Service Center by phone 1-866-288-8292 (TRS: 711) or by email QPP@cms.hhs.gov  and provide:

  • the URL (Web address) of the material you tried to access
  • the problem you experienced
  • the assistive technology (if any) you are using
  • your contact information.

A CMS representative will attempt to help you find the information you were seeking.

Supported Browsers

The Quality Payment Program (QPP) was developed and tested to support Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. In order for the Quality Payment Program (QPP) website to work properly, users must have JavaScript enabled in their browser.

A user may choose to change the accessibility options in their browser. Use the following links to learn more about the options Edge and Chrome include to make things easier to see on the computer screen, or to adjust to your visual preferences:

Interface Overview

The Quality Payment Program (QPP) interface is designed to promote usability and support the use of assistive technology. The following sections outline some specific design elements used throughout the web application.

Keyboard Accessibility

Every Quality Payment Program (QPP) page should be fully accessible with a keyboard; a mouse is not required. In other words, a user can use the keyboard to navigate through pages on the Quality Payment Program (QPP) website by selecting links, completing form controls, and using form buttons. The Quality Payment Program (QPP) website does not include any custom-defined access keys.

Text Size

The Quality Payment Program (QPP) website uses only relative, scalable font sizes designed to work with a browser's text resizing options.

Page Structure

All primary pages in the Quality Payment Program (QPP) have a consistent structure as follows (reading from top to bottom):

  • "Skip to Main Content" link
  • Global navigation area
  • Main content
  • Global footer area

"Skip to Main Content" Link

The "Skip to Main Content" link provides a convenient shortcut to the main content of the page. The "Skip to Main Content" link allows users to bypass the global navigation links and quickly skip to the main content of the page. This feature may be helpful if you are a keyboard user, are using a screen reader or screen magnifier, or are viewing the website on a small screen. For example, this shortcut saves a keyboard user from having to tab through the global navigation links before they get to the core information (content) on the page. Similarly, screen reader users can jump their screen reader software to the start of the content without having to listen to the global navigation area on each page.

The "Skip to Main Content" link is hidden as the first link on Quality Payment Program (QPP) pages that are displayed after the user logs into the application. When keyboard focus is concentrated on the link, the "Skip to Main Content" link text is visible to the left of the Quality Payment Program banner. Once the user tabs away from the link, the link text once again becomes hidden. Activating the "Skip to Main Content" link navigates the user to the heading for the main content.

Global Navigation Area

The global navigation area provides access to the Quality Payment Program (QPP) Home page from any page within the Quality Payment Program (QPP) application. The global navigation also includes a series of menu dropdowns that allows the user to navigate between different components of the application.

Error Messages

If errors are found when you submit a data entry form, you will be taken back to the same page. A new messages section will appear at the start of the main content area. A list of the applicable error messages will be displayed.

Global Footer Area

The global footer area provides the user with links to the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) website, privacy policy, Quality Payment Program (QPP) Accessibility Statement and contains common links for sections of the Quality Payment Program (QPP) website.

Text Equivalents

Text equivalents are provided for all images to aid users who listen to the content of the system by using a screen reader or Braille display, rather than reading the website. Text equivalents also benefit users who, due to slow download speeds or security concerns, choose to disable the display of images in their browser.

Use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

CSS is used to control some visual formatting and presentation on the Quality Payment Program (QPP) website. Quality Payment Program (QPP) pages are not designed to interfere with user-defined style sheets. Moreover, if your browser or browsing device does not support style sheets at all, Quality Payment Program (QPP) pages are readable and understandable (i.e., no content is lost) when the associated style sheet is turned off. A screen reader can read the page content.

Use of Tables

The Quality Payment Program (QPP) website uses some "layout tables" to control the visual layout of the pages. As a result of the table-based layouts, non-JAWS screen reader users may have to listen to their screen reader detect this information. However, screen reader users can distinguish between the presence of actual data tables used for presenting and tabulating data versus layout tables. For actual data tables, summary text descriptions and table column headers are used to help screen readers make sense of table structures. For layout tables, neither summary text nor table headers are provided.

Links That Open a New Browser Window

On some pages, text links or graphic links will trigger a new browser window to open. Links that open a new browser window will contain a message which is specifically formatted for screen readers. The following text will appear after the link text to indicate that the link will open in a new browser window: "This link opens in a new window."

JAWS Virtual Cursor

Text in a web page is very much like the static text in a Windows status message. The PC Cursor cannot move to this text as there is no insertion point. The JAWS Cursor can access this text, but this is not the most effective way to access larger documents such as those often found on the World Wide Web. When using Internet Explorer 5 or later (or programs that tie into the core components of Internet Explorer), JAWS provides the Virtual Cursor to simulate an insertion point. This provides you similar functionality to that found in any word processing document. Read text by word, line, sentence, or paragraph, or select and copy text to the Windows clipboard. The Virtual Cursor is active by default in applications that support it. If you switch to another cursor, press NUM PAD PLUS to make the Virtual Cursor active again. You can turn the Virtual Cursor off entirely, but this seriously limits functionality. Toggle the Virtual Cursor on and off by pressing INSERT+Z.

Routing the Virtual Cursor to the PC Cursor

Press INSERT+DELETE to route the Virtual Cursor to the PC Cursor. Using this command moves the Virtual Cursor to the current location of the PC Cursor. This makes using Web forms easier and is also useful on pages where a form control is automatically made active when the page loads.

Routing the PC Cursor to the Virtual Cursor

You can press CTRL+INSERT+DELETE to route the PC Cursor to the Virtual Cursor. Using this command moves the PC Cursor (and the application focus) to the current location of the Virtual Cursor. Visually, the page will scroll so that the area containing Virtual Cursor is visible on the screen. This command is the opposite of the Route Virtual to PC Cursor command (INSERT+DELETE).

Routing the Virtual Cursor to the JAWS Cursor

You can press INSERT+NUM PAD PLUS to route the Virtual Cursor to the JAWS Cursor. Using this command moves the Virtual Cursor to the current location of the mouse pointer and can help sighted users navigate Web pages.