The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) formal public reporting initiative mandated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) asks your patients to rate their experiences with respect to various healthcare delivery systems. These ratings are shared with the public, potentially affect your hospital's reputation and standing in the community it serves, and will be used in calculating your value-based purchasing payments going forward.

With the results of patient experience surveys available for public scrutiny and reimbursement tied to these scores through value-based purchasing, HCAHPS scores are more important than ever.

HCAHPS serves the public’s interest in improving the quality of care in America’s hospitals by providing consumers, healthcare professionals, and hospitals with standardized and comparable information on how patients view their quality of care experience. HCAHPS furnishes valid and reliable information on several critical aspects of the hospital experience on a continuous basis.

In addition to gaining valuable information about your own care processes, participating hospitals are able to compare with other hospitals and the industry as a whole on exactly the same indicators. This information could be fed directly into the hospitals assessment and improvement program. The ongoing and standardized nature of the survey also allows hospitals to track changes in patient perspectives on care over time.

The instrument is endorsed by major hospital associations and is strongly supported by leading healthcare and consumer organizations. The HCAHPS survey is part of the Hospital Quality Alliance. The public reporting of HCAHPS data was tied to the Annual Performance Update from CMS. Beginning July 2007, acute care hospitals that choose not to participate in HCAHPS measurement will see a 2 percent reduction of their market basket update.

What is HCAHPS protocol?

The HCAHPS Survey is designed to be completed by adult patients who had a recent medical, surgical or obstetrical visit to an acute care hospital. There are certain exclusions for patients who should not receive the survey. For example, patients with certain illnesses or diseases are excluded, as well as patients who are not alive at discharge.

· All payor types are included in HCAHPS. Even though this is a CMS initiative, it is not focused on Medicare beneficiaries.

· Patients under age 18 are not included in HCAHPS.

· Specialty hospitals are not included in HCAHPS. Only general acute care hospitals are covered by the protocol.

· Some patient exclusions are required. These include expired patients, most psychiatric cases, and patients who are discharged to hospice, etc. Exclusions are based on DRG and admit or discharge status.

How is the survey administered?

The HCAHPS protocol supports several modes of data collection. There are advantages and disadvantages for each mode. National Research Corporation will help you determine which mode is right for you.

· Mail Only: An initial survey mailing to the sample followed by a second survey to non-respondents about three weeks later.

· Mixed Mode: Using this approach, an initial survey mailing is distributed and then a phone call is made to non-respondents of the mail survey.

· Phone Only: This protocol uses exclusively telephone to collect the results. Five survey attempts must be made to each selected patient.

· IVR: IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response. Using this mode, patients will be contacted by telephone and then transitioned to an electronic survey they can completed with their touch-tone telephone.

- See more at: http://www.nationalresearch.com/products-and-solutions/cahps/hcahps/#sthash.8OJRks8e.dpuf

	Created by Maxia Webb almost 10 years ago

An overview of CGCAHPS, ACOCAHPS and HCAHPS