NCQA CAHPS PCMH Surveys for Medical Practices

Situation

HealthWise Medical Associates, LLP, which is comprised of eight primary care practices in the state of Connecticut, contracted with the Office of Survey Research (OSR) to conduct their patient experience surveys for submission to the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). All the HealthWise practices are currently recognized as a Level 3 accredited Medical Home by NCQA and were interested in achieving Distinction in Patient Experience Reporting.

Solution

As an NCQA-certified survey vendor, OSR conducted the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) surveys for each of the eight HealthWise practices following NCQA survey protocols.

• We sampled patients for each of the eight practices based on the number of eligible clinicians per practice, for a total sample size of 2,056 patients.
• Both adult and child surveys were conducted since HealthWise includes adult and pediatric practices. Surveys were conducted in English and Spanish.
• While NCQA CAHPS PCMH surveys are typically conducted by one or two modes of data collection (such as mail only, phone only or mail and phone), we used three modes of data collection to maximize response rates – mail, online via PC/smart phone/tablet, and telephone.
• Surveys were fielded in late spring/early summer of 2014 and results submitted to NCQA during the September submission period.
• We also prepared practice-level reports for HealthWise, which visually displayed the survey results on each of the key CAHPS PCMH measures in an easy-to-read format.

Results

NCQA has awarded all eight HealthWise medical practices Distinction in Patient Experience Reporting. The tailored reports we prepared for the practices have armed them with actionable information to further improve patient experience. Additionally, OSR achieved high survey completion rates – 47% for the Adult survey and 35% for the Child survey, which compare very favorably to the average completion rates reported by NCQA (28% Adult and 15% Child).