24-269 Annual Patient Experience Survey - Here's How You Can Help
Date: 03/18/24
Focus on and improve your patient’s health care experience and ask them to take the CAHPS® survey
Each year Health Net, in collaboration with our vendor, conducts the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) survey to determine patient satisfaction with physicians, specialists, patient-provider relationships, patient-provider communications, and services provided to them. CAHPS is an industry standard tool that helps to evaluate patient satisfaction and is used to determine opportunities for improvement.
Patients’ interactions with their physicians and office staff can directly impact their health care experience and their view of the quality of care they received. We value your partnership and appreciate your assistance ensuring our members have the best patient experience.
Please encourage your patients to participate in the CAHPS® survey
Results from the survey are very important in helping with initiatives that can improve member compliance and health outcomes.
CAHPS survey timeline by line of business:
| Estimated Timeline for 2024 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Medi-Cal/ Commercial | Exchanges | Medicare | |
Pre-notification letter/postcard mailed | February | February | March |
Mailed surveys | February – March | February – March | March – April |
Phone collection | Early April | Early April | Late April |
Initial CAHPS results | July | July | August |
Final CAHPS results/ratings | October (OPA1) November (NCQA2) | October (QRS3) | August (Stars4) |
1Office of the Patient Advocate (OPA)
2The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)
3Quality Rating System (QRS)
4Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Stars)
Below are some survey questions to which your patients are asked to respond:
- When you needed care right away, how often did you get care as soon as you needed?
- When you made an appointment for a check-up or routine care at a doctor’s office or clinic, how often did you get an appointment as soon as you needed?
- How often was it easy to get the care, tests and treatment you needed?
- How often did your personal doctor listen carefully to you?
- How often did your personal doctor spend enough time with you?
- How often did your personal doctor explain things in a way that was easy for you to understand?
- How often did you and your personal doctor talk about all the prescription medicines you were taking?
- How would you rate your personal doctor?
Focusing on a positive patient experience will have many important benefits to your practice, including the following:
- Increase patient retention.
- Increase compliance with physician clinical recommendations.
- Improve patient’s overall wellness and health outcomes.
- Ensure preventive care needs are addressed more timely.
- Reduce no show rates.
Resources to help support you
Refer to the below materials for more information on CAHPS. These are online under CAHPS/Additional Resources.
- Improve CAHPS Results and Patient Experience toolkit – This toolkit focuses on CAHPS measures on patient access, communication with patients and care coordination.
- CAHPS Tip Sheet – outlines questions tied to the CAHPS survey and provides suggestions to improve patients’ experience.
Additional information
If you have questions regarding the information contained in this update, contact the Health Net Provider Services Center by email, by phone or through the Health Net provider portal.
This information applies to Physicians, Participating Physician Groups (PPGs) and Community Supports (CS) Providers.
For Medi-Cal, this information applies to Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare and Tuolumne counties.