CAHPS Hospice Survey
CAHPS® Hospice Survey… The CAHPS Hospice Survey assesses the experiences of patients who died while receiving hospice care and their primary informal caregivers. The survey treats the patient and caregiver as a single unit of care. Its purpose is to:
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- Provide a source of information on patient/caregiver experiences that can be publicly reported to beneficiaries and their family members to help them select a hospice program,
- Support hospices with their internal quality improvement efforts and external benchmarking with other facilities, and
- Provide the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) with information for monitoring the care provided by hospices. The survey contains 47 questions and is administered to eligible decedents/caregivers from all payer sources.
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CAHPS Star Ratings
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- CMS will display overall Hospice CAHPS Star ratings on public reporting no sooner than August 2022 and will be updated every other quarter.
- CMS will provide preview reports to providers in February and May 2022 as a dry run.
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Fast Facts about Star ratings:
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- Calculation and display: The calculation and display of the CAHPS Hospice Survey Star Ratings be like that of other CAHPS Star Ratings programs such as Hospital CAHPS and Home Health CAHPS.
- Star Ratings range: The stars would range from one star (worst) to five stars (best) like other post-acute provider types.
- Reportability: Hospices must have a minimum of 75 completed surveys over the given eight-quarter period in order to receive a CAHPS Hospice Star Rating.
- A hospice with fewer than 75 respondents will not receive a Star Rating; however, their measure scores may be used to determine Star Ratings cut points and may be publicly reported on Care Compare.
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Calculation of Star ratings
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- Top box score: Ratings will be calculated based on “top-box” scores for each of the eight CAHPS Hospice Survey measures.
- Hospice level score: A hospice-level score for a given survey item would then be calculated as the average of the individual-level responses, with adjustment for differences in case mix and mode of survey administration.
- Calculation of the overall CAHPS Hospice Survey Star Rating:
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- The calculation will average the Star Ratings across the 8 measures
- Scoring weights will be rounded to a whole number
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Measure name |
Scoring weight |
Communication with family |
1 |
Getting timely help |
1 |
Treating patient with respect |
1 |
Emotional and spiritual support |
1 |
Help for pain and symptoms |
1 |
Training family to care for patient |
1 |
Rating of this hospice |
1/2 |
Willing to recommend this hospice |
1/2 |
CMS Star Ratings resources are located on the CMS CAHPS Star Ratings webpage
Measure name |
Questions from the survey |
Communication
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Family caregivers reported how often the hospice team:
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Getting timely help |
Family caregivers reported how often:
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Treating patient
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Family caregivers reported how often:
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Emotional and spiritual support |
Family caregivers reported about how much:
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Help for pain and symptoms |
Family caregivers reported whether their family member got as much
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Training family
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Family caregivers reported whether the hospice team gave them
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Rating of this hospice |
Family caregivers rated this agency on a scale of 0 (worst possible)
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Willing to recommend this hospice |
Family caregivers reported how likely they would be to recommend
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CAHPS Survey Instruments
The CAHPS Hospice Survey Instruments posted below have been approved by OMB (mail and telephone).
Access CAHPS survey instruments HERE.
Participation Exemption for Size Process
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- The Participation Exemption for Size process has been created to provide hospices that have fewer than 50 survey-eligible decedents/caregivers in the “reference period” (see table below) with a means to request an exemption from participation in the CAHPS Hospice Survey.
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NHPCO Resource
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- Hospice CAHPS® Survey and Star Ratings (Nov 2021)
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CMS CAHPS Survey Resources:
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- Information for hospices
- CAHPS FAQs
- Introduction to the CAHPS Hospice Survey Training slides are available HERE. (PDF 2020)
- Approved vendor list
- Hospice CAHPS Star Rating webpage (Nov 2021)
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