Home
Health Care CAHPS (HHCAHPS)
Patient
satisfaction survey data collection and analysis for
Home Health Agencies
Home
Health Care CAHPS FAQ:
- Other
questions? Our marketing research experts will be
happy to answer them. Call us at
888.420.8884 or
fill out our contact
form
and we will contact you.
What
is HHCAHPS?
Home Health
Care Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and
Systems (HHCAHPS) is a standardized survey for adult
patients' experience with care and services from Medicare
certified home health care agencies.
HHCAHPS
has been developed by the Center for Medicare and
Medicaid Systems (CMS), the US Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the United States
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). It
is a patients’ experience survey, created to
assess healthcare quality and report findings nationwide.
Participation is required by Medicare.
The initiative
aims to create an objective and meaningful comparison
between home health care providers on attributes important
for the consumers. The reporting aims to stimulate
service quality improvement as well as quality transparency
and public accountability in health care.
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How
can our home health agency use HHCAHPS surveys and
Alexandria Marketing Research Group’s services
to improve our agency’s quality of service?
- Build
a deeper understanding and knowledge about your
patients’ satisfaction attributes.
- Find
out what your strengths are, according to your patients’
beliefs. Emphasize and advertise these strengths.
- Our
analysis of your surveys’ results will pinpoint
for you the areas, on which you need to work. Efforts
in these areas will result in improvement of your
agency’s quality of care, the patients’
satisfaction, and consequently your agency’s
image and profitability.
- Continuous
evaluation of your agency provides you with the
trend of your quality development and assessment
of your improvement strategy.
- Gain
a benchmark insight into your industry. Find out
how your agency is performing in comparison to the
US market, evaluate your positioning, and build
your strategy accordingly.
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What
are our agency’s benefits from choosing Alexandria
Marketing Research Group?
- Valuable
information allows you to manage your business more
effectively and attain competitive advantage because
we do not stop at providing you the raw result but
also prepare PowerPoint presentation containing
your data analysis.
- After
thorough statistical processing we provide you with
timely analytical quarterly and annual reports.
Thus first you acquire the important information
and know more than anyone else about your home healthcare
quality and your opportunities for improvement.
This allows you time to react correctively as well
as preventively.
- You
receive competitive and reliable quality service
because our scholars, who have specialized in marketing
research for the past 20 years, possess practical
knowledge and scholarly understanding of the statistical
research tools. Moreover, they have gained extensive
experience with CAHPS surveys during the past 3
years.
- You
receive competitive price, security, and long term
commitment. We guarantee stable pricing structure.
Once quoted, we will not increase the price for
performing your HHCAHPS surveys in a period of 3
years, except for changes, resulting from increase
in postage costs.
- You
receive services that better fit your home health
agency because we can customize the instruments
for your needs.
- We
are available for on site visits: consultations,
presentations, and help any time you need us. You
have a question, request, or a problem – call
us! We are always there for your help and will respond
to your needs in a timely manner. We value your
time!
- We
achieve highest service quality. We strictly follow
not only the AHRQ guidelines but as members of the
American Marketing Association and the American
Society for Quality we also abide by their quality
principles and codes of ethics.
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Does
our home health agency have to participate in the
HHCAHPS survey initiative?
Every Medicare
certified home health agency is required to participate
in the survey initiative and publicly report its findings.
If your agency is not Medicare certified, and if you
would like to profit from the described HHCAHPS benefits
we will help you and perform HHCAHPS surveys for you.
Medicare-certified
home health agencies with fewer than 60 eligible,
unduplicated Medicare or Medicaid patients for the
time period of April 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010
would be exempt from conducting the HHCAHPS Survey
for the annual payment update in CY 2012. Information
about eligibility and how to apply for an exemption
can be found at the HHCAHPS
website.
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When
does our home health agency have to start participating
in the HHCAHPS initiative?
Home health
agencies will be required by the US Agency of Healthcare
Research and Quality to have an approved vendor –
such as Alexandria Marketing Research Group, conducting
HHCAHPS surveys for them and reporting their results.
The process
of administering HHCAPS surveys will start with a
dry run, in which home health agencies are required
to participate. The dry-run will be conducted in the
third quarter of 2010. Starting October 2010, agencies
have to begin continuously data collection of the
home healthcare CAHPS survey. Reporting results publicly
by CMS will begin with the data from the forth quarter
of 2010. Non-compliance stipulations on CMS payments
to the healthcare agencies will begin in 2012.
Get to
know your agency and patients better. Improve your
quality assurance now and enjoy higher patients’
satisfaction tomorrow, which will improve your agency’s
HHCAHPS survey reports.
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Who
can conduct the HHCAHPS survey?
Only approved
vendors such as Alexandria Marketing Research Group
can conduct the survey. The home health agencies are
not allowed to conduct HHCAHPS surveys in-house.
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How
is the HHCAHPS survey conducted: instrument and method?
The survey
covers the perceptions about: access to care, communications,
interactions with the agency and its staff, overall
rating of the agency, and willingness to recommend
it to family and friends.
The AHRQ has established three methods for conduction
the survey: direct mail only, by phone, or a mix of
the two. Alexandria Marketing Research Group recommends
the direct mail only method. That is because we believe
this method provides more unbiased responses as respondents
have more time to think while they are filling out
the survey.
The questionnaire
is sent to randomly selected sample of the patients
or to a census of all patients. It measures the period
of the last two months. To be surveyed patients must
have been visited at least twice during these two
measurable months. Moreover, once patients have been
included in the sample, they cannot be sampled within
the next 5 months.
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Which
patients are exempt from participating in HHCAHPS
surveys?
The following
groups are excluded from the sample for the survey:
- Under
the age of 18;
- Deceased;
- Have
received hospice care;
- Have
received routine maternity care only;
- Have
requested that their names are not released to anyone;
or
- Patients
for whom Medicare and Medicaid have not paid.
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What
are our agency’s responsibilities when Alexandria
Marketing Research Group performs our HHCAHPS surveys?
Leave everything
to us – you only submit your agency’s
monthly visits. Let us help you! We do more than just
fulfill the requirements. We provide you with a tool
for success.
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What
does Alexandria Marketing Research Group provides
for us?
- We build
and maintain a quality assurance plan,
- We prepare
the sample and distribute the HHCAHPS survey,
- We
gather and analyze the survey data,
- We
provide you with timely quarterly and annual reports
with analysis in PowePoint presentation of the data
results,
- We
submit your results on the national level.
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How
many responses from HHCAHPS surveys do we need to
be able to publicly report our findings?
For statistical
precision AHRQ has set a target minimum of 300 completed
HHCAHPS surveys over each 12-month reporting period.
This is equivalent to an average of 25 completed surveys
per month. There are circumstances in which the size
of the home health agency will not permit surveying
a sufficient number of patients to yield 300 complete
responses. In this case the full census of eligible
patients should be surveyed.
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What
response rate does Alexandria Marketing Research Group
expect with HHCAHPS surveys?
Our experience
with conducting HCAHPS surveys and other surveys in
the healthcare field indicate an expected response
rate between 25% and 40%. We achieve this through
high professionalism and very clean and clinical design
of our survey packages. Request a sample package sent
to you to see how we are going to do your HHCAHPS
surveys.
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How
can our home health agency get a quote from Alexandria
Marketing Research Group for conducting our HHCAHPS
surveys?
It is simple,
fast, and easy! Give us a call at 888.420.8884 or
or fill out our contact
form and we will provide you with a competitive
quote.
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How
can I contact Alexandria Marketing?
Call us
at 888.420.8884 between 8 am and 5pm CST or fill out
our contact
form.
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Further
Resources!
For more
information you can also visit:
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