HCAHPS Survey

Highest Quality Survey Administration and Reporting at a Great Price

$2,900
per survey year

The Hospital-CAHPS (HCAHPS) survey has been adopted by CMS/Medicare to collect information from hospital patients on their experience with care. Survey results are intended to facilitate consumer comparisons of hospitals, guide quality improvement efforts, and contribute to public accountability. For PPS hospitals, Medicare payment levels will be affected by whether they participate in the HCAHPS survey initiative.

CSS is a CMS-approved HCAHPS vendor. We are offering a simple solution to give your hospital the full benefits of HCAHPS at a very reasonable cost. We will conduct the CMS-approved survey adhering to a CMS-approved survey protocol.

(How to order)

CSS's Expertise

CSS is very likely the most experienced administrator of CAHPS surveys in the nation—

• We have been certified by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) to do the health plan CAHPS surveys since the CAHPS program began, and we are one of the few certified survey organizations approved to handle the largest number of samples.
• We annually conduct the health plan CAHPS surveys for several of the nation's largest managed care organizations (UnitedHealthcare, CIGNA HealthCare, Aetna) and many smaller plans--with more than 1.1 million members surveyed in the past seven years.
• We have fielded the nation's two largest tests of preliminary versions of the Clinician/Group (Ambulatory) CAHPS surveys (surveying a sample of 220,000 patients about their physicians in Massachusetts in 2005, 170,000 in California in 2005, and 450,000 in California in 2006).
• We have participated as an advisor/reviewer during the development of each of the CAHPS surveys (for health plans, hospitals, and physicians).

CSS ensures patient confidentiality. To assure that we are HIPAA-compliant, CSS has been certified by the JCAHO/NCQA Privacy Certification for Business Associates Program.

For more on CSS's expertise, click here.

How We Will Do the Surveys

Your Surveys will be done using the CMS-approved mail protocol and will include—

• Using a sample of patients drawn each month from discharge data you provide.
• Using a sample size determined based on CMS's suggested response rate estimates (from CMS's February 2006 HCAHPS Quality Assurance Guidelines) to collect the 300 survey responses CMS expects in the survey year (except from small hospitals that can't reach that number even if all discharges are surveyed).
• Two Mailings-a first mailing followed by a second mailing to all non-respondents.
• First-class postage for all mailings.
• Attractive mailing pieces with personalized cover letter, questionnaire coded to track specific respondent, and postage-paid business-reply envelope.
• Your hospital identified on outside of the mailing piece and in the personalized cover letter (with logo if you wish) including signature of hospital CEO.
• A toll-free number given in the letter, staffed by us for patients to call with any questions about the survey.

(How to order)

For low annual fee of $2,900, your hospital gets the complete HCAHPS survey, meeting all CMS requirements, done by CSS Research, a nonprofit research organization that is very likely the most experienced administrator of CAHPS surveys in the nation.

What Reports You Will Get

Every three months, you will get a 20-page report of survey results showing—

• Your hospital's actual scores and scores adjusted according to CMS-required procedures to take into account differences in patient mix and survey mode.
• How your hospital compares to similar hospitals and to CMS benchmarks (including tests of statistical significance).
• Trends in your hospital's performance.
• Which domains of care and which specific survey questions matter most to your patients.
• How you are performing on each domain and question.
• Where your greatest opportunities are for raising your overall score and overall consumer satisfaction.

You also get a respondent-level data file that you can easily use, if you wish, to do your own analyses.

If you wish after you have seen your results, we will submit your data to CMS.

How to order

For more information or to contract with CSS to perform your HCAHPS surveys, contact Michael Greenfield or Paul Kallaur toll-free at 877-OKCAHPS (877-652-2477) or at hcahps@cssresearch.org.