
To be approved by CMS
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, previously known as the Health Care Financing Administration, is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state government…
Full Answer
Does the CAHPS program have a vendor certification process?
Neither the CAHPS program nor the CAHPS Database have a vendor certification process. Any vendor who administers the appropriate version of a survey and follows CAHPS data collection and submission protocols may submit data to the CAHPS Database.
Who is required to participate in the Medicare CAHPS training?
Please note: At a minimum, a survey vendor's Project Manager, Mail Survey Supervisor and Telephone Survey Supervisor are required to participate in the Medicare CAHPS Training. MA and PDP contracts are not required to attend training.
What are the different versions of the Medicare CAHPS survey?
The Medicare CAHPS Survey includes three versions of the questionnaire: Medicare Advantage (MA-Only), Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plan (MA-PD), and Stand-Alone Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (PDP).
Do I need a survey vendor for a CAHPS survey?
Users of CAHPS surveys of patient experience typically seek out and contract with a survey vendor to administer the survey and sometimes to analyze and report the results. Unless specified by an external organization, the use of survey vendors is recommended but not required. Why Use a Vendor for a CAHPS Survey?

How do I become a CAHPS vendor?
Completing and submitting a Vendor Registration and Application and demonstrating experience conducting mail, telephone, or mixed-mode surveys. If you are interested in becoming approved to administer the ICH CAHPS Survey, please contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team via email for more information.
Is CAHPS only for Medicare?
The CAHPS surveys will be conducted at the contract level for Medicare Advantage only (MA), Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug (MA-PD), and Stand-Alone Prescription Drug plans (PDPs).
How is CAHPS administered?
The surveys are administered between March and June, beginning with surveys distributed by mail and concluding with telephone-assisted surveys for participants who have not responded. More details on the CAHPS survey and how it applies to Medicare Advantage plans can be found at MA-PDPCAHPS.org.
What is Medicare CAHPS survey?
Overview: CMS collects information about Medicare beneficiaries' experiences with, and ratings of, Medicare Advantage (MA-only) plans, Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug (MA-PD) plans, and stand-alone Medicare Prescription Drug Plans (PDP) via surveys of beneficiaries who have been enrolled in their plans for six ...
Is CAHPS part of hedis?
NCQA uses the CAHPS Health Plan Survey 5.0 as part of the Experience of Care domain of HEDIS® (the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set), a set of health plan performance measures used for both public reporting and accreditation.
Is CAHPS required?
Are CAHPS surveys required? AHRQ does not require the implementation of any CAHPS surveys. However, other organizations, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, require the use of certain CAHPS surveys.
How does CAHPS survey work?
CAHPS® Surveys CAHPS surveys follow scientific principles in survey design and development. The surveys are designed to reliably assess the experiences of a large sample of patients. They use standardized questions and data collection protocols to ensure that information can be compared across healthcare settings.
What are the two types of CAHPS surveys?
Examples include the CAHPS Health Plan Survey, the CAHPS Hospital Survey (HCAHPS), and the CAHPS Clinician & Group Survey (CG-CAHPS). CAHPS surveys may be administered by phone, email, and/or mail, depending on the certification of the vendor administering the survey.
What is the difference between Hcahps and CAHPS?
The HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) Survey, also known as the CAHPS® Hospital Survey or Hospital CAHPS®, is a standardized survey instrument and data collection methodology that has been in use since 2006 to measure patients' perspectives of hospital care.
What is the difference between CAHPS and hos?
The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) survey and the Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) help provide feedback on your patient's experience with you, the provider and us. UnitedHealthcare's goal is to continue to help improve the overall experience for your patients and our members.
How are CAHPS scores calculated?
Reliability plays a role in calculating CAHPS Star Ratings and in describing non-star measures in reports to MA and PDP contracts. Reliability is calculated as 1−V/(V+t2), where t2 is the between-contract variance of the means for that measure and V is the sampling variance of the contract's mean score.
What are the three broad goals of CAHPS?
The three goals of the survey include: creating incentives to improve the quality of care, producing comparable data on patient's perspectives, and increasing transparency within healthcare to make the public more accountable.
What is an RFP in a CAHPS survey?
The RFP should contain. A statement of work that describes the background for the CAHPS survey and provides details of what needs to be done and how; Background material on the project;
How to get information on vendors capabilities?
To get information on vendors' capabilities, you need to develop a Request for Proposal (RFP) that tell prospective vendors
Why is it important to use an experienced vendor?
The use of an experienced vendor can help ensure that the collection and analysis of the survey data are consistent with recommended CAHPS protocols for survey administration, analysis, and reporting. This is especially important if you want to compare your results with those of other sponsors locally or through merged data sets such as the CAHPS Database or the National Committee for Quality Assurance's (NCQA) Quality Compass.
What is vendor training?
Vendors typically have trained staff to perform the activities, as well as the facilities and equipment required to handle the tasks (e.g., large-scale mailing facilities, telephone switching equipment, and computer, printing, and graphics capabilities). The use of an experienced vendor can help ensure that the collection and analysis ...
What to ask vendors for?
Ask vendors for details on their monitoring, supervision, and problem resolution procedures. Or, if you already know what procedures you prefer, be sure to specify your requirements clearly.
What should be included in a vendor proposal?
You may want to include the vendor's technical and cost proposals (which detail the activities, deadlines, products, and amount and method of payment) as attachments to the contract.
Does CAHPS have vendor certification?
Neither the CAHPS program nor the CAHPS Database have a vendor certification process. Any vendor who administers the appropriate version of a survey and follows CAHPS data collection and submission protocols may submit data to the CAHPS Database.
Who approves CAHPS surveys?
All surveys officially designated as CAHPS surveys have been approved by the CAHPS Consortium, which is overseen by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). CAHPS surveys follow scientific principles in survey design and development.
What is CMS survey?
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) develop, implement and administer several different patient experience 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, among others. The surveys focus on matters that patients themselves say are important to them and for which patients are the best and/or only source of information. CMS publicly reports the results of its patient experience surveys, and some surveys affect payments to CMS providers.
Does CMS pay for quality?
Instead of only paying for the number of services provided, CMS also pays for providing high quality services. The quality of services is measured clinically, administratively, and through the use of patient experience of care surveys.
What is CAHPS in MIPS?
The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) for MIPS Survey is an optional quality measure that groups and virtual groups participating in MIPS can elect to administer.
How to contact HHS for care compare?
For more information on public reporting and Care Compare, contact the Quality Payment Program at [email protected] or 1-866-288-8292 (TTY: 1-877-715-6222). HHS is committed to making its websites and documents accessible to the widest possible audience, including individuals with disabilities.
What is MIPS in healthcare?
Guidance for Overview: The Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is one track of the Quality Payment Program, where clinicians earn a performance-based payment adjustment to their Medicare payment. Clinicians participating in MIPS have the flexibility to choose the measures and activities that are most meaningful to their practice to demonstrate performance. The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) for MIPS Survey is an optional quality measure that groups and virtual groups participating in MIPS can elect to administer.
When will MIPS survey be approved in 2021?
There’s a two-step vendor approval process: Complete and submit the vendor participation form application by 5 p.m. ET on Monday, April 26, 2021. All vendors with approved participation form applications will be placed on a list of conditionally approved CAHPS for MIPS Survey vendors.
What is step 2 in QAP?
Step 2 – Successful completion of vendor training and submission of a Quality Assurance Plan (QAP)
How many follow up phone calls to patients who don't return a survey by mail?
Up to 6 follow-up phone calls to patients who don’t return a survey by mail.
What is CAHPS survey?
The Medicare CAHPS surveys produce comparable data on the patient's experience of care that allow objective and meaningful comparisons between MA and PDP contracts on domains that are important to consumers. The survey data are publicly reported by contract. The results from the Medicare CAHPS surveys are published in the Medicare & You handbook and on the Medicare Options Compare Web site ( www.medicare.gov ). Public reporting of the survey results is designed to create incentives for contracts to improve their quality of care and also serves to enhance public accountability in health care by increasing the transparency of the quality of care provided by Medicare contracts. The measures derived from the surveys are used by beneficiaries to help choose an MA or PDP contract, help contracts identify areas for quality improvement, and allow the public and research community to assess Medicare program performance. Medicare administrators and policymakers also rely on the measures to manage the program; devise, implement, and monitor quality improvement efforts; and make policy decisions.
Do survey vendors have to attend CAHPS training?
MA and PDP contracts are not required to attend training.
Does CMS analyze CAHPS data?
CMS and the MA & PDP CAHPS Project Team continually analyze MA & PDP CAHPS data. To make locating our MA & PDP CAHPS research easier, we have added a bibliography of publications from the MA & PDP CAHPS Project Team. This bibliography was updated on March 29, 2021.
