How Do Health Plans Measure Patient Satisfaction?

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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[By Dr. Brent A. Metfessel MS]

Patient satisfaction is a subjective measure of what the patient perceives in terms of the level of service quality and care provided by the clinician. Many health plans consider patient satisfaction an important measure of physician quality.

Now, although not a direct measure of clinical quality, many researchers link patient satisfaction to clinical outcomes. This data, however, is also resource-intensive to collect and requires commitment on the part of the patient to fill out the forms and return them in the mail or on-line.

Selection Bias

However, selection bias may occur in terms of patient satisfaction data, in that patients who choose to fill out and return the forms may in some cases not be representative of the overall patient population for a physician.

Enter the CAHPS® Consortium

More recently, the field has been moving from measuring “satisfaction” to elucidating a more validated and specific “patient experience of care”.  The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®), funded and administered by the Agency for Healthcare Quality (AHRQ), is a part of a national initiative to measure, report on, and improve health care quality from the viewpoint of patients and other consumers. Separate surveys are used for evaluating ambulatory care and facility or hospital care.

In addition, the National CAHPS Benchmarking Database contains over 10 years of CAHPS survey data from commercial and Medicaid plans and is designed to facilitate comparative analysis of individual CAHPS survey results with benchmarks, including national or regional averages. The CAHPS program works closely with other public and private research agencies, known collectively as the CAHPS Consortium, for continued review and enhancement of the survey tools.

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About the Author

Brent A. Metfessel, MD MS is currently Senior Medical Informaticist in Clinical Analytics at UnitedHealthcare, where he designs physician measurement algorithms and statistical methods and leads the application of risk adjustment methodologies to various health care quality and cost-efficiency measurement initiatives. He also has a decade of experience in general computer science, statistical analysis, artificial intelligence, and computational biology. Dr. Metfessel received his Masters of Science Degree in health informatics from the Universityof Minnesota and his Medical Doctorate from the Universityof California, San Diego. 

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3 Responses

  1. Jane, on December 15, 2011 at 11:30 PM said:

    Hospitals Turn To ‘Drug Rep’ Model to Boost Admissions

    The University of Chicago Medical Center is one of a growing number of hospitals nationwide hiring former drug and device sales reps to visit doctors’ offices to persuade them to use their services over competing facilities.

    Rather than handing out drug samples, the sales reps call on doctors armed with the latest information about their hospitals such as how they are reducing hospital-acquired infections and improving patient satisfaction scores.

    http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/December/14/Hospitals-Adopt-Drug-Industry-Sales-Strategy.aspx

    This is nothing new, professional prostitutes all, especially the non-profits!

    Jane

    Like

  2. Cletus, on May 17, 2012 at 4:39 PM said:

    New research disputes claims EHRs improve diabetes care

    Not with eHRs, apparantly, as contrary to previous research, the use of electronic health records failed to improve care for diabetic patients in a study published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

    http://www.annfammed.org/content/10/3/221.full

    Cletus

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  3. Ann Miller RN MHA, on December 19, 2014 at 6:10 PM said:

    AP-NORC: 7% of Employers Use Quality Information to Choose a Health Plan

    According to a new nationally representative survey funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research:

    • 60% of employers offering health insurance say quality ratings are important when choosing a plan.
    • 4% of employers say their organization uses HEDIS Scores.
    • 1% of employers say their organization uses eValue8.
    • 36% of employers offering health insurance say their organization uses quality data.
    • 24% say their organization uses other sources to evaluate health insurance plan quality.

    Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

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