Mini CAHPS Program
Since the 1990’s there has been an ever increasing investment in systemically assessing patients’ experiences the care and services they receive, and utilizing the finding of the assessments in the context of accountability measurement, and as a base for consumers to choose among providers and health plans. Although there has been some criticism of the validity of patient expressions of their experience with care, (e.g., subjectivity of patient satisfaction, inability of patients to effectively evaluate quality, inability of to compare patient scores fairly across health care providers and plans due to factors beyond providers control, limited use of survey results for practice quality improvement efforts), summated measures of patient satisfaction remain a significant aspect of the evaluation of healthcare entities.
Guardian Health Services has developed a “Mini” CAHPS Program designed to compensate for some of the methodological/sampling shortcomings of the current NCQA directed annual CAHPS and provide a base for monitoring patient experience at the provider practice level. The specific goals of the GHS Mini CAHPS Program are to:
- Introduce a minimally invasive methodology for capturing and monitoring patient experiences with client participating providers at individual practice and provider levels.
- To assist GHS clients in using the data/findings derived from the systematic assessment of patient experiences in the context of their commitment to continuous quality improvement and enhancement.
- Provide GHS clients with a proactive approach to identifying potential practice and/or provider patient experience problems and issues and an opportunity to address those problems/issues in advance of the independent NCQA directed annual administration of the full CAHPS.
Guardian Health Services has developed a set of “mini’ CAHPS survey instruments that can be systematically administered in provider office settings and used to monitor, on a quarterly basis, the care experience of individual participating provider/practice client patients. The survey instruments composing the Guardian Mini CAHPS Program include:
Patient Satisfaction Survey
- Patient Satisfaction Survey Commercial ACO Adult Version
- Patient Satisfaction Survey Commercial ACO Child Version
- Patient Satisfaction Survey Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACO Version
- Patient Satisfaction Survey Medicare Advantage Organization (MAO) Version
- Patient Satisfaction Survey Hospital (HCAHP) Version
The Guardian “mini’ CAHPS patient satisfaction instruments include items from the relevant and most recently published annual CAHPS survey instruments published by NCQA. At least semi-annually (first and third quarters or second and fourth quarters), each of the participating primary care provider offices aligned with GHS clients are asked to administer the appropriate mini CAHPS instrument to all patients within their respective panels (Commercial ACO, MSSP ACO, MA; Medicaid Managed Care) who visit their office for a scheduled appointment during the target survey assessment period (quarter). Aligned patients are asked to complete the relevant brief survey while waiting to be seen by their PCP or extender, and return the completed survey to office staff. The “mini” HCAHP is administered to all discharged client aligned patients. The completed surveys are faxed each week to Guardian Health Services and coded.
Each quarter the data/finding derived from the administration of the respective mini CAHPS instruments are aggregated at the individual provider level and at the respective client participating provider network level, with comparative performance analysis between providers relative to network performance. The findings from the GHS Mini CAHPS Program are provided to clients along with recommended quality performance based interventions to improve patient satisfaction at the individual provider level, with the ultimate goal of addressing specific issues/concerns emerging from the findings improving overall performance in advance of the annual CMS CAHPS survey.
Guardian Health Services has developed a “Mini” CAHPS Program designed to compensate for some of the methodological/sampling shortcomings of the current NCQA directed annual CAHPS and provide a base for monitoring patient experience at the provider practice level. The specific goals of the GHS Mini CAHPS Program are to:
