Healthcare Providers

The Center for the Study of Services (CSS) has over two decades of experience fielding patient experience surveys on behalf of provider organizations, health plans, hospitals, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and leading research organizations. CSS is currently a certified survey vendor for PCMH CAHPS, ACO CAHPS, PQRS CAHPS, and ICH CAHPS. We have also fielded some of the largest Clinician-Group CAHPS survey efforts in the country using customized data collection, analysis, and reporting approaches designed for public reporting and pay-for-performance.

Clinician Group CAHPS. CSS surveys over 600,000 patients per year about their provider using the CG-CAHPS survey. Since 2002, we have conducted CG-CAHPS (and similar surveys of patients about their physicians) for numerous organizations, including several of the largest CG-CAHPS projects to date with the Pacific Business Group on Health in California, Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, Minnesota Community Measurement, and Puget Sound Health Alliance in Washington.
ACO CAHPS. The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Survey for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) lets accountable care organizations participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (Shared Savings Program ACOs) and Pioneer ACO Model meet their requirement to measure patient experience of care. CSS is an approved vendor, and has been conducting ACO CAHPS surveys since 2013. CSS partnered with the RAND Corporation to field the first-ever national implementation of the ACO CAHPS survey in 2013 and 2014.

In-Center Hemodialysis CAHPS. Since AHRQ first published the CAHPS survey for In-Center Hemodialysis facilities, CSS has surveyed more than 100 facilities each year, including independent facilities with a few dozen patients to multi-site networks with hundreds of patients. CSS offers all of CMS's approved fielding protocols, and our standard reports include key driver analysis that help facilities distinguish the survey items with the greatest impact on overall satisfaction scores.
CAHPS for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Survey for group practices participating in the MIPS program was developed to collect information about patient experience and care within that group practice. CSS is among the first vendors to receive conditional approval from CMS as a MIP CAHPS survey vendor, as well as the preceding survey program for the Physician Quality Reporting System. CSS offers competitive prices, non-English language options, as well as volume and multi-year price discounts as we work with healthcare providers to measure, report and improve the experiences of healthcare consumers.