What Your Patients Think Matters

The annual Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS^®) survey begins in February and lasts through May. The survey asks patients to report on and evaluate the care they receive from their providers. It covers topics that are most important to your patients and focuses on various aspects of quality. This survey is required to be compliant with CMS regulations and is conducted to a sample of Highmark members in all product lines.   

Both CMS and state regulatory bodies require that health plans conduct member satisfaction surveys such as CAHPS each year. Please remember that the way you and your staff interact with patients impacts their perception of the quality of care they receive. Be positive. Encourage member questions. Communicate and coordinate care with other physicians the patient is seeing. As a rule, patients tend to rate their physician as “high,” or they switch physicians.

Here are a few examples of questions your patients will find on the CAHPS survey.

Getting Care Quickly

• How often did you get an appointment for a check or needed care as soon you needed?
• How often did you see the person you came to see within 15 minutes of your appointment time?

Getting Needed Care

• How often was it easy to get the care, test, or treatment you needed?
  

Shared Decision-Making

• How often did you and your personal doctor talk about all the prescription medicines you were taking (never, sometimes, usually, or always)?

Coordination of Care

• How often did she/he have your medical records or information about your care?
• When your personal doctor ordered an x-ray, blood test, or other test for you, how often did someone from your personal doctor’s office follow up to give you those results?
• How often did you get those results as soon as you needed them?
• Did you get the help you needed from your personal doctor’s office to manage your care among different providers and services?

How Well Your Doctors Communicate with You

• How often did your personal doctor explain things in a way that was easy to understand?
• How often did your personal doctor listen carefully to you?
• Did your personal doctor show respect for what you had to say?
• Did your doctor spend enough time with you?

Your Personal Doctor

• What number would you use to rate your personal doctor? (0-10)

Your Specialist

• How often did you get an appointment to see a specialist as soon as you needed?
• How often did your personal doctor seem informed and up to date about the care you got from a specialist?
• What number would you use to rate your specialist? (0-10)

Additional CAHPS survey questions address clinical care and services provided by network providers. These include tobacco use counseling and cessation, as well as flu and pneumococcal vaccinations. Your discussions with patients about these topics can make a positive difference in your survey scores. 

Highmark reviews the CAHPS survey results to learn more about the overall experiences of our members and to identify possible areas of improvement. We value the importance of the survey results and will continue to work with our providers to enhance our members’ perception of the care and services they receive.