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Improve Member Satisfaction: Strategies to Get Ahead of CAHPS Surveys to Maximize Score Potential
There is a growing need to keep a stronger pulse on member and patient satisfaction within the healthcare sector. High rates of member and patient satisfaction have a variety of benefits including health plan retention, increased utilization of benefits, and quality score improvement. Additionally, Cigna recently announced a new initiative to prioritize member and patient satisfaction by tying executive compensation to customer satisfaction results, a trend that we may see other health plans follow.
Currently, one of the ways that health payers and providers track and measure member and patient satisfaction is through CAHPS surveys. This standardized tool was developed to assess patient experiences with healthcare services and is a key component of the feedback continuum. Because CAHPS surveys focus on patient experience and satisfaction, their results play a crucial role in shaping provider and health plan accountability, impact quality measures like HEDIS scores and Star Ratings, and can be accompanied by financial incentives, if results are positive.
So, what can health payers and providers do to gauge the pulse of their members ahead of the official CAHPS survey administration? In this blog post, we’ll dive into some effective pre-survey strategies, but first, let’s start with some details about CAHPS.
What is the CAHPS Survey?
The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, better known as CAHPS, survey is a standardized tool that was established by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The CAHPS survey aims to provide reliable, comparative information on member and patient perspectives across various healthcare settings.
What is the Purpose of the CAHPS Survey?
The CAHPS survey plays a significant role in healthcare quality assessment by measuring member and patient satisfaction and engagement. It provides insights into things like communication, access to care, and service quality, which healthcare organizations use to enhance patient-centered care. Additionally, CAHPS survey results influence reimbursement models and quality improvement initiatives.
Implementation and Administration of CAHPS Surveys
CAHPS surveys come in multiple forms tailored for different healthcare services. By doing this, patients and members are able to report on their experience across a spectrum of services – from their health payer to their provider. Additionally, there are CAHPS surveys that focus specifically on experiences for post-inpatient care, home health services, and long-term care facilities. Below is a list of the types of surveys.
Types of CAHPS Surveys
- Health Plan CAHPS Survey: Evaluates members’ experiences with their health plans.
- Hospital CAHPS (HCAHPS) Survey: Measures inpatient hospital experiences.
- Clinician & Group CAHPS (CG-CAHPS) Survey: Assesses experiences with healthcare providers.
- Home Health CAHPS (HHCAHPS) Survey: Focuses on home health services.
- Nursing Home CAHPS Survey: Evaluates long-term care facility experiences.
Process of Conducting the CAHPS Survey
The CAHPS survey is conducted through various delivery modes such as mail, telephone, email, or mixed-method approaches. AHRQ-certified vendors administer the CAHPS survey, ensuring standardized data collection. The results are analyzed and reported to healthcare organizations, policymakers, and the public to inform quality improvement strategies.
CAHPS Survey Impact on Healthcare Quality
The CAHPS survey provides direct patient feedback, identifying strengths and areas for improvement in healthcare delivery. It highlights issues such as provider communication, wait times, care coordination, and overall satisfaction. The results of CAHPS surveys influence regulatory policies, accreditation standards, and performance-based incentives. They are influential in quality measures like HEDIS and Star Ratings, both of which impact health payer and provider reputation and reimbursements.
Strategies for Improving CAHPS Scores
Given the significant impact that CAHPS results can have for health payers and providers detailed here, how can these groups measure the pulse of their members and patients in anticipation of the official administration of CAHPS surveys? Innovations in digital patient engagement tools, like Relay, and real-time feedback mechanisms are not only improving member and patient satisfaction but also enhancing CAHPS survey effectiveness. Organizations are increasingly leveraging technology to get in front of members and patients sooner, address concerns promptly and improve service delivery. Here’s how we see it: Connect. Engage. Remind. Survey. Take Action.
See how Relay’s HIPAA compliant digital communication channel, the Relay Feed, can help support these efforts.
- Connect
Connect with your patients and members, early and often. By initiating contact, you are showing interest in their health and demonstrating the value you can bring to them as part of the plan. Digital tools, like Relay, make this easy to do. Leveraging our HIPAA compliant channel, the Relay Feed, delivered via text message, we are able to reach and connect with more of your members, on a familiar and frictionless channel. - Engage
A JD Power study found significant correlation between customer satisfaction and customer engagement. They found that the overall satisfaction score increased by more than 150 points when the health payer engaged with their member about things significant to them and their health journey. Demonstrate a deep understanding of the member or patient and use that information to create relevant messages for them to drive engagement. Relay’s no-code CXBuilder makes it easy to stand up content quickly and personalize it for each individual member or patient and their health journey. - Remind
An important part of the CAHPS survey involves confirming the healthcare actions members took over the past year. By reminding them of their behaviors and validating their experiences, they are more likely to provide accurate responses. Remind members of the things that they have done (and maybe not done!) this year to better their health. Amy got her flu shot? Give her praise for keeping herself and others healthy throughout this flu season. Jim is due for a colonoscopy? Remind him of the importance of preventive care and direct him to schedule the procedure. The Relay Feed is proven to drive conversions at higher rates than our traditional counterparts, like email and direct mail. With clear calls to action like click to call, appointment scheduling, embedded forms for information capture, and even a chat functionality, we pride ourselves on driving the actions that you want and need your members and patients to take. - Survey
Think of it as a practice round. By providing a small survey before the bigger survey, health payers and providers can prepare members for what to expect while also crafting the survey in a way to glean insights that they can act on in the short term to help improve scores. Proactively gathering smaller bits of feedback over the course of the year can surface issues and concerns that members and patients have and help inform initiatives to improve overall satisfaction. A core component of the Relay Feed is our survey functionality. You can easily embed a custom survey in a message that is delivered out to members and pull response data in real-time directly from our reporting tool. - Take Action
This is the most important part of the plan: taking the insights and turning them into action. If you reach out to members well ahead of the survey timeframe, you have time to resolve any concerns that come out as a result of the survey. By proactively addressing these items, you can positively impact member responses on the real survey. But that is just the final leg of the mile. The work begins when you get connected to your members and patients and engage them with important content that’s relevant to them.
Improving patient and member satisfaction does not happen overnight. But by following these steps, health payers and providers can create a better overall experience through personalized digital interactions while also preparing their members for surveys to come.
Future Trends for the CAHPS Survey
The future of the CAHPS includes expanded survey methodologies, integration with artificial intelligence for deeper insights, and broader inclusion of diverse patient populations. As healthcare evolves, the CAHPS survey will continue to shape patient experience strategies and quality improvement initiatives, so it’s vital for health payers and providers to get ahead of CAHPS and get in front of their members and patients to improve overall satisfaction and sentiment. The Relay Feed can help payers and providers in this effort by taking care of the patient and member throughout their healthcare journey.
To learn more about how Relay can help with driving actions to improve quality scores, check out our eBook or reach out to sales@relaynetwork.com.
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