Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS)

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) develop and implement many patient surveys. These surveys ask patients (or in some cases their families) about their experiences with, and ratings of, their health care providers and plans, including hospitals, home health care agencies, doctors, and health and drug plans.  The surveys focus on matters that patients say are important to them. CMS publicly reports the results of its patient experience surveys, and some surveys affect payments to CMS providers.

Patient experience surveys are mistaken for customer satisfaction surveys. Patient experience surveys focus on how patients experienced key aspects of their care, not how satisfied they were with their care. Patient experience surveys focus on asking patients or how often they experienced critical aspects of health care, including communication with their doctors, understanding medication instructions, understanding their diagnosis and the coordination of healthcare needs.  They do not focus on any amenities.

CAHPS surveys follow scientific principles in survey design and development.  The surveys are designed to reliably assess the experiences of a large number of patients.  They use standardized questions and data collection protocols to ensure information can be compared across healthcare settings.  CAHPS surveys are developed with broad stakeholder input, including a public solicitation of measures and a technical expert panel, and the opportunity for anyone to comment on the survey through multiple public comments period through the Federal Register.  Finally, many CAHPS measures are statistically adjusted to correct for differences in the mix of patients across providers and the use of different survey modes.

Some of the surveys include: Hospital CAHPS, Home Health CAHPS, HCBS CAHPS Survey, Fee-for-Service CAHPS, Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug Plan CAHPS, In-Center Hemodialysis CAHPS, Nationwide Adult Medicaid CAHPS, Hospice, CAHPS® Survey for Accountable Care Organizations Participating in Medicare Initiatives, Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery CAHPS, CAHPS for PQRS, CAHPS for MIPS.

Find Florida information at this link, https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Research/CAHPS/index.html