patient population, including social determinants of health and behavioral health needs. 442. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services quality payment program (a) In general The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Quality Payment Program, developed through implementation of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, should explicitly integrate achieving health equity across all measures and activities, including the Merit-based Payment Incentive System and Alternative Payment Models. In addition, CMS should identify limited-English proficient (LEP) persons as a specific underserved group within the program and give high weight to providing language services for non-English speakers. Clinicians can demonstrate performance in this category by developing language assistance plans, providing oral interpretation services, and providing translated documents for the population served or eligible to be served. (b) Stratified data CMS should include an explicit reference that data stratification and reporting is one way of working to achieve health equity. CMS should require that in reporting this measure, clinicians should stratify clinical quality measures by disparity variables, including race, ethnicity, preferred language, disability status, sexual orientation, and gender identity, psychological and behavioral status. Clinicians can use existing demographic data collection fields in CEHRT to do this. Stratified data can help clinicians identify and distinguish efforts to improve quality from efforts to reduce disparities, which may not correlate without dedicated work. All participating entities in the Quality Payment Program should adopt 2015 Certified Electronic Health Records Technology as a condition of participating in the program. (c) Quality improvement activities Further, CMS, upon yearly review of the Quality Payment Program, should add quality improvement activities that implement the Culturally and Linguistically Accessible Standards (CLAS) standards as Improvement Activities. 443.