PRACTICE MANAGEMENT: Why Should You Care About Your Patient Satisfaction Scores?

As early as in 1995, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) partnered with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to develop the Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems (CAHPS) to report on patient satisfaction during their medical experience. It was not until 2008 when the first public reporting of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) data was available. And in 2013, CMS initiated the hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program that changed hospital reimbursements to be based on the hospital’s specific performance data indicators that included patient satisfaction scores. Simply said, under the CMS VBP program, hospitals are offered incentives for higher HCAHPS scores. These government-dictated patient satisfaction scores have multiple flaws, and they are typically capturing an isolated inpatient visit and providing data that are frequently not actionable by individual health care providers. One can have an amazing experience while undergoing surgery...