Clinics and group practices now have a standardized survey on patient experiences available for gathering feedback from their consumers. With this survey comes the ability to benchmark your clinic or group against others across the country. To make this survey process successful and beneficial to your organization, you need a partner organization with years of experience and the ability to help you use the results for improvement efforts.
The Jackson Group has offered patient and customer satisfaction survey services to the healthcare industry for over 30 years, focusing on providing flexible survey delivery options, easy-to-read reports and unparalleled customer service.
As one of the initial survey research firms to meet with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and help develop the current Hospital CAHPS® survey instrument, The Jackson Group is proud to offer turn-key Clinician & Group CAHPS® (CG-CAHPS®) services as part of its array of services to healthcare organizations.
The Jackson Group also offers other CAHPS® services, including the Hospital CAHPS® and the Home Health CAHPS®. Click on either of these links to visit pages about those respective services.
Your clinic’s participation in the CG-CAHPS® survey will enable you to compare your patient experience results to those of your peer organizations, across the state, or even across the nation. Reports can be produced at the physician, provider or practice level for various points of comparison. And from a marketing perspective, you want to make sure that when potential patients are evaluating various clinics using the upcoming government-developed web site your clinic has patient experience data to share.
Data submission for the CG-CAHPS® process began in Fall 2010 with an expected release of a national comparative database in 2011. A clinic or group could start gathering data from their patients and submit the data on a quarterly basis to CMS to be included in this database.
The Jackson Group has been collecting and managing CAHPS® data for many clients in the healthcare industry for many years. Your CG-CAHPS® needs would be addressed through the use of any of the approved survey methodologies: telephone only, mail only, or “mixed mode” (mail and telephone).
Regardless of methodology, the standard CG-CAHPS® services includes the handling of patient visit data files, drawing appropriate samples, conducting telephone calls or mailing of paper surveys to a sample population, and reporting the data to your organization on a quarterly basis.
The Jackson Group also handles submitting the appropriate files and data to CMS / CAHPS® to ensure your organization’s results will be on the government web site for public viewing when it becomes available.
The Jackson Group would work with your clinic/group to determine the appropriate sampling numbers and methodology, the process for compiling patient information, and sending that data to our offices on a monthly basis.
If your clinic selects the telephone methodology, The Jackson Group utilizes an in-house call center to place all outbound survey calls. All callers are trained with a focus on customer service and strive for high response rates as well as positive interactions with your patients. The mail methodology would employ the use of a partner printing and mail house firm to ensure the highest efficiency in expenses and user-friendliness of the survey instrument.
Reports are very user-friendly and clearly identify your results as compared to The Jackson Group’s internal database as well as national norms. In addition, you receive comparisons to up to 5 of your closest “competitors” to see how your results measure up (available after release of the publicly-reported online database).
All of this is done with the highest level of customer service possible, as each organization is assigned a direct project manager and a data specialist — both available to answer questions and address your organization’s needs.
The CG-CAHPS® survey process can be a beneficial tool for your clinic, and in fact may become a requirement in the coming years. The Jackson Group is ready to partner with you to make sure the process runs smoothly and help you utilize your results for true patient experience improvement.
