Know The (HCAHPS) Score

Posted: Thu, Jul 10, 2014 07:24

I've talked about this before, but it’s worth revisiting. The HCAHPS (Hospital-Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey is mandatory for all hospitals, except critical access and certain specialty hospitals, and those are pending. Scores are publicly reported, and they’re linked to compensation. That means that everyone should be making service improvements, even if it isn't mandatory yet – it will be.

The current national threshold for “Communication with Doctors” is 70.94%. That means all discharged patients that complete this survey are rating their experience a 4 out of 4 (or “Always”). What’s your score?

Consider This:

Value Based Purchasing

Let me begin by saying: VBP is here to stay.

At a restaurant, do you leave the same tip for bad service that you do for good service?

No, of course you don’t, and neither does CMS. This is Medicare’s way of saying, “We are going to honor excellence and penalize less than average care as defined by the patient.” We don’t pay the same for bad service as good service, and they’re not going to pay the same for poor clinical outcomes as good clinical outcomes. Depending on your comparison against the national threshold and the mean average, you can make or lose 1% of your current reimbursement. If anything, HCAHPS is going to go from 1% to 2% over the next few years. It should be taken very seriously. For some hospitals, it’s the difference between profit and loss.

There are three questions that are being asked on the HCAHPS Survey that relate to “Communication with Doctors.”

• During this hospital stay, how often did doctors treat you with courtesy and respect?
• During this hospital stay how often did doctors listen carefully to you?
• During this hospital stay, how often did doctors explain things in a way you could understand?

From these questions, we know that there are three skills that physicians must master to provide an excellent patient experience: courtesy, listening, and teaching, from the bedside to the exam room.

If you think you’re off the hook because you don’t work at a hospital, think again: CMS designed a survey for clinics and groups (CGCAHPS); hundreds of clinics are now voluntarily reporting. They are piloting ER CAHPS, Ambulatory Surgery CAHPS, and Outpatient CAHPS. The fact is that eventually, every form of healthcare provider that is publicly funded is going to be surveyed.

The Take Away:

CAHPS surveys and VBP are changing the face of health care. Get ready to get with the program!

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