CAHPS
CAHPS Stands for Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (CAHPS).
It was developed by AHRQ (the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality) in 1995 for payors & consumers to understand the patient/consumer experience. AHRQ's three goals were to create: comparable data, transparency; & incentives to improve patient/consumer experience in healthcare.
CMS triple-weights your CAHPS scores. That means your consumer/patient assessments are counted three times in your 5-STAR ratings compared to other scores.
These surveys focus on matters that the patients feel are important and for which the patients are the best source of information. The results of these surveys impact the revenue of providers.
It is important to consider that patient experience is not the same as patient satisfaction; patient experience surveys focus on how the patients perceived key aspects of their care, not how satisfied they were with it. Patient experience surveys ask patients either or how often they experienced critical aspects of health care, including communication, understanding their medication instruction and coordination of care.
Some providers feel helpless & skeptical about this score, thinking, "If I just prescribe whatever the patient wants, that's how I'll score high." However, significant efforts have been taken to overcome that concern. Most of the items in the CAHPS survey are objective patient experience items, like, "How long did it take you to get an appointment?" Studies continue to show that Medicare Advantage plans score better on CAHPS surveys.
CAHPS is an acronym for Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems. & (see citations 1-7 below)
1.Timbie JW, Bogart A, Damberg CL, Elliott MN, Haas A, Gaillot SJ, Goldstein EH, Paddock SM. Medicare Advantage and Fee-for-Service Performance on Clinical Quality and Patient Experience Measures: Comparisons from Three Large States. Health Serv Res. 2017 Dec;52(6):2038-2060. doi: 10.1111/1475-6773.12787. PMID: 29130269; PMCID: PMC5682140https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5682140/
2. King, R. Medicare Advantage plans achieve better outcomes than traditional Medicare, BMA analysis finds. Fierce Healthcare Dec, 2020.
3. Ayanian, J. Z. , Landon B. E., Zaslavsky A. M., Saunders R. C., Pawlson L. G., and Newhouse J. P.. 2013. "Medicare Beneficiaries More Likely to Receive Appropriate Ambulatory Services in HMOs Than in Traditional Medicare." Health Affairs (Millwood) 32 (7): 1228–35.
4. Elliott, M. N. , Landon B. E., Zaslavsky A. M., Edwards C., Orr N., Beckett M. K., Mallett J., and Cleary P. D.. 2016. "Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Enrollees Report Less Positive Experiences Than Their Medicare Advantage Counterparts." Health Affairs (Millwood) 35 (3): 456–63.
5. Gold, M. , and Casillas G.. 2014. "What Do We Know about Health Care Access and Quality in Medicare Advantage Versus the Traditional Medicare Program?" https://www.kff.org/medicare/report/what-do-we-know-about-health-care-access-and-quality-in-medicare-advantage-versus-the-traditional-medicare-program/
6. Keenan, P. S. , Elliott M. N., Cleary P. D., Zaslavsky A. M., and Landon B. E.. 2009. "Quality Assessments by Sick and Healthy Beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare and Medicare Managed Care."
7. Landon, B. E. , Zaslavsky A. M., Bernard S. L., Cioffi M. J., and Cleary P. D.. 2004. "Comparison of Performance of Traditional Medicare vs Medicare Managed Care." Journal of the American Medical Association 291 (14): 1744–52.
Ready to find out more?
Call us at 859-721-1414 or email us. Your patients deserve it. Your family deserves it. You deserve it!