The National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) has learned that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is launching a Hospice CAHPS Survey Mode Experiment. CMS is seeking information to help in the development of adjustors that will allow for better standardization across hospices that participate in the CAHPS survey. The experiment seeks to adjust accordingly to the survey mode used by the different hospices: mail, telephone, or mixed mode. CMS is working with the RAND Corporation on the project and outreach by both CMS and RAND is currently being made to selected hospices relative to participation.
Hospices should note that the hospice participants for this project have been selected by CMS based on them having met specific criteria that have been established. CMS is not taking additional hospices into the experiment at this time.
According to CMS, the mode experiment will help CMS develop survey mode adjustments to achieve the goal of fair and standardized comparisons across all hospices that participate in the CAHPS Hospice Survey. It is necessary to make adjustments to account for the effect of the mode of survey administration in which caregivers respond to the CAHPS Hospice Survey. These adjustments are intended to eliminate any advantage or disadvantage in CAHPS Hospice Survey scores that might result for a hospice based on the mode in which its caregivers respond to the CAHPS Hospice Survey.
CMS’ contractor, the RAND Corporation, will collect survey data for the mode experiment at no cost to the participating hospices or their survey vendors. The cost of conducting the mode experiment is funded by CMS. Participation in the CAHPS Hospice Survey mode experiment will fulfill hospices participation requirements for the CAHPS Hospice Survey administration during the mode experiment data collection period (April through September 2015). Although the RAND Corporation will act as the participating hospices’ survey vendor of record during this time, hospices are welcome to maintain their contracts with their vendors.
