| Home Health Care CAHPS® Survey
DSS Research Home Health Care CAHPS® Program meets the new CMS requirements for Home Health Care Agencies
Background.
CMS has developed the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Home Health Care Survey – Home Health Care CAHPS – to measure the experiences of people receiving home health care from Medicare certified home health agencies (HHA). The initiative is designed to empower consumers with quality of care information to help them make more informed decisions about their health care and to stimulate and support providers and clinicians to improve the quality of health care.
- National implementation. An agency’s participation in the survey is voluntary until the third quarter of 2010. Participation in the HH-CAPHS Survey will be linked to the annual payment starting in the fourth quarter of 2010. Even after the Survey is linked to the annual payment update, agencies can decide whether they will or will not participate in HH-CAHPS. However, those that do not may risk not receiving their full annual payment update.
- Quarterly basis. Programs run on a quarterly basis and participation needs to start at the beginning of a calendar quarter.
- Dry run. Agencies must take part in a “dry run” in order to test their processes. Results are submitted to CMS, but are not reported to the public.
- Approved survey vendors. HHAs who would like to participate must use an approved vendor and may not conduct the survey on their own.
With DSS you get:
- Confidence. The confidence that comes with knowing things will be done right. All requirements will be met and the results will be submitted properly. Don’t put your results in jeopardy by using and inexperienced vendor.
- Service. The members of your account team are dedicated, experienced professionals, anxious to provide you the benefit of their experience. Members of your team, under direction of the project manager, are aligned to deliver your research on time, on budget and on spec.
- Quality and satisfaction. Everything we do revolves around delivering quality results while winning your satisfaction with innovative tools and diligent service.
- Proven processes. More than 15 years of success in CAHPS programs has enabled us to develop and refine processes to effectively manage your project. Our streamlined systems and optimized methodology save you time, money, risk and frustration using:
- Proven, effective, comprehensive Survey Management System (SMS).
- Regular, scheduled project update communications from us for the duration of your project.
- Skilled health care research specialists.
- In-house control.
- Insight and innovative tools. Analysis and tools that take you deep into the minds of the people you serve and provide direction for quality improvement:
- DSS Data Live® Online Reporting Tool gives you access to your results as they unfold.
- Actionable reporting provides trending from quarter-to quarter, regional and national benchmarking and composite and global proportion scoring.
- POWeR Chart™ Modeling System tells you how you are performing on the items that are most important to patients.
- Impact Analysis Model you trACTION™ and estimates how small improvements in specific areas will impact overall satisfaction.
Getting started with DSS is easy:
- Accept the DSS proposal.
- Choose the program options you prefer – mail, phone or mixed mode.
- Sign contract and business associate agreement – We take HIPAA regulations very seriously.
- Transmit your logo in high resolution.
- Send the name, title and signature of a high-level HHA official.
- Provide 3-6 months of number of patients data to enable us to determine appropriate sampling rates.
- Your DSS project manager will get your project up and running in short order.
For additional help or to get started, contact: HHCAHPS@dssresearch.com
CAHPS® is a registered trademark of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
POWeR Chart™ and trACTION™ are trademarks of DSS Research.
DSS Data Live® is a registered trademark of DSS Research.
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