What is HH-CAHPS?

A HH-CAHPS refers to Home Health Care CAHPS®, is part of the family of Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers  and Systems (CAHPS)  survey instruments developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in conjunction with CMS,  to assess patient’s perceptions of care provided by Medicare certified home health care agencies. 

What is  the purpose of the HHCAHPS Survey?

A The survey was developed to produce comparable data on patient’s perspectives on care that allows objective and meaningful comparisons between HHA’s on domains that are important to consumers and to create incentives for agencies to improve their quality of care.

Does my agency have to participate?

A All Medicare-certified home health agencies (HHAs) with over 60 HH-CAHPS eligible patients  annually  will have to participate in order to get their full annual market basket increase. Agencies with fewer than 60 eligible, unduplicated patients between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2010 must submit their patient counts to the HH-CAHPS Data Center by Wednesday, June 16, 2010 to receive a waiver from participation. The form required will be posted to the www.homehealthcahps.org web site prior to that deadline and will be removed after the deadline.

Which patients will be eligible for the survey?

A Patients considered eligible for participation include the following;

• Medicare or Medicaid patients
• Patients at least 18 years of age at any time of care
• Patients who are believed to be alive
• Patients that have received at least two visits in the past 60 days and had at least one skilled care visit during the sample month
• Patients not currently receiving only hospice care
• Patients not currently receiving only routine maternity care
• Patients who have not requested that their names not be released to anyone.

How many patients do I need to survey?

A Agencies are required to complete 300 surveys.   Response rates range from approximately 25% for Mail Mode to 35% for Mixed Mode.  This means that agencies will need to survey 900-1200 patients per year  to be able to secure 300 completed surveys or  75-100 patients per month.  Agencies whose patient census does not allow them to meet the requirement of  300 completed surveys (patient census  falls  below the 900-1200 a year )  will be required to survey ALL their patients.

When do I need to start?

A The Dry Run starts  in the 3rd quarter of 2010 and it is REQUIRED that all agencies that want to participate in the HH-CAHPS national implementation that starts on October 1, 2010. participate in the Dry Run. It allows an agency to work with a vendor to collect and submit data, and essentially, work out any kinks.  Agencies must participate in at least one month of the Dry Run.

Will the Dry Run Data be reported?

A Dry Run data will not be publically reported. The data will be submitted to CMS for quality checks and to ensure that all processes are running smoothly for agency and vendor before the October 1, 2010 official start data.

When will the data be reported?

A An Agency's survey results will be reported when the agency has one years's worth of data. Some agencies have benn participating in CAHPS surveys on a voluntary basis since October of 2009.  If those agencies have continous through September of 2010, their data will be reported in Spring 2011. 

Results for Agencies that began collecting data in in the Dry Run period ( third quarter of 2010) will be publicly reported when these agencies have four(4) quarters of data .

Can HHAs conduct the survey?

A Certainly cost is a factor. Mail Mode is the most cost effective way to meet the CMS requirement. Mixed Mode offers you the highest “completion” rate on surveys, meaning you will have to survey fewer patients to make your 300 required surveys. Telephone interviews can often result in more positive comments, however, CMS is going to adjust for the final reported results to allow for the slight discrepancy in results between mail and telephone mode. Telephone Mode or Telephone interviews are the best way to ask qualitative or open-ended questions that require a “text” answer,