What is care gap closure?
A care gap is the distance between what a quality program expects for a patient and what the record shows. Closure means doing the thing, or proving it was already done. Both halves are documentation work.
Written by Dr. Tattvam A. Nair, Co-Founder & COO of Layrd. Updated August 2026.
Where the lists come from
HEDIS measures, MIPS quality reporting, Medicare Advantage star ratings, and the quality terms of value-based contracts each define what a patient should have received: the screening, the lab, the vaccination, the follow-up. Each program keeps its own list and its own windows, and a practice in several contracts runs several lists at once.
The gap that is not a gap
A large share of open gaps are already closed in the real world. The colonoscopy happened at the hospital. The mammogram happened at the imaging center. The report is sitting in a fax queue or an unopened portal, and until someone files it, the measure reads as failed. Staff then spend hours chasing records to close gaps that were never clinically open.
Why it is worth real money
Star ratings, quality bonuses, and shared savings all key off closure rates. The same care, documented and undocumented, produces different revenue. That is the uncomfortable arithmetic of quality programs: the record is the product being graded, not the medicine.
Where Layrd fits
Layrd reads every incoming document on arrival and files it into the right chart, which closes the documentation half of the problem at the source. Coding & Analytics then tracks care gap closure across every program the practice participates in, with dashboards for the whole practice.
What programs create care gaps?
HEDIS measures, MIPS quality reporting, Medicare Advantage star ratings, and the quality terms written into value-based contracts. Each program keeps its own measure list and its own windows, so a practice in several contracts is working several lists at once.
What are the two kinds of care gap?
Care not yet delivered, and care delivered somewhere else that the record cannot see. The second kind closes with documentation alone: the colonoscopy report is sitting in a fax, and the gap closes the moment it is filed into the chart.
Who closes care gaps in a practice?
Traditionally staff, working lists: calling patients, chasing outside records, updating the chart. The documentation half of the work disappears when every outside record is filed correctly on arrival.
Does Layrd close care gaps?
Layrd files every incoming document into the right chart on arrival, and Coding & Analytics tracks care gap closure across every program, with practice-wide dashboards.
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