Quick links: Current News | Background | About the Survey | HCAHPS Publications by the HCAHPS Project Team | Executive Insight Letters | For More Information | To Provide Comments or Questions | Internet Citation
- The HCAHPS Frequently Asked Questions Document Has Been Revised
- NEW! HCAHPS Podcast Now Available - HCAHPS Program Updates: Changes to Survey Content and Survey Protocol
- Summary of Key Changes to Content of Updated HCAHPS Survey
- Summary of Key Changes to Administration of Updated HCAHPS Survey
- Updates to HCAHPS Public Reporting on Care Compare
- HCAHPS Survey Changes and Hospital Value-Based Purchasing
- FOLLOW-UP: January 2, 2025 HCAHPS Data Submission Deadline
- HCAHPS Participation to Open for New Applicants and Mode Additions in Early January 2025
- HCAHPS Minimum Business Requirements to Administer the HCAHPS Survey
- The HCAHPS Fact Sheet Has Been Revised
- HCAHPS Response Rate by Survey Mode Table Added to the Summary Analyses Page
- HCAHPS Quality Assurance Guidelines V19.0 Survey Instruments Have Been Updated to Include the OMB Expiration Date
- HCAHPS FINAL Quality Assurance Guidelines V19.0 Now Available
- HCAHPS FINAL Quality Assurance Guidelines V19.0 Summary of Changes Now Available
- Foreign Language Survey Materials Submission
- Care Compare Has Been Refreshed
- Summary Analyses Page Tables Have Been Updated
- The Star Ratings Distributions Have Been Updated
- HCAHPS Survey Individual Question Top-Box Table Has Been Updated
- Patient-Mix Adjustments and National Means for January 2025 HCAHPS Results Have Been Posted
- Star Ratings: January 2025 Technical Notes Have Been Posted
- V.42 MS-DRG Codes Effective October 1, 2024
- Final Updated HCAHPS English Survey (Mail mode), Effective with Patients Discharged on January 1, 2025 and Forward is Now Available
- FY 2025 IPPS Final Rule Has Been Published
- HCAHPS Public Reporting Periods for October 2023 Through October 2025 Have Been Updated
- CMS to Update HCAHPS Survey Mode Adjustments Beginning with Patients Discharged in January 2025
- OMB Expiration Date Now Available for the Current HCAHPS Survey Instruments
- NEW! Updated HCAHPS Survey Page Now Available
- Updated HCAHPS Survey
- Important Changes to the HCAHPS Survey Coming in 2025
- CY 2021 Service Line Benchmark Tables Have Been Posted
- Updated: HCAHPS Bibliography Citation
- HCAHPS XML File Specifications V4.6 Have Been Posted
The intent of the HCAHPS initiative is to provide a standardized survey instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients’ perspectives on hospital care. While many hospitals have collected information on patient satisfaction, prior to HCAHPS there was no national standard for collecting or publicly reporting patients’ perspectives of care information that would enable valid comparisons to be made across all hospitals. In order to make “apples to apples” comparisons to support consumer choice, it was necessary to introduce a standard measurement approach: the HCAHPS Survey, which is also known as the CAHPS® Hospital Survey, or Hospital CAHPS. HCAHPS is a core set of questions that can be combined with a broader, customized set of hospital-specific items. HCAHPS Survey items complement the data hospitals currently collect to support improvements in internal customer services and quality related activities.
Three broad goals have shaped the HCAHPS Survey. First, the survey is designed to produce comparable data on the patient’s perspective on care that allows objective and meaningful comparisons between hospitals on domains that are important to consumers. Second, public reporting of the survey results is designed to create incentives for hospitals to improve their quality of care. Third, public reporting will serve to enhance public accountability in health care by increasing the transparency of the quality of hospital care provided in return for the public investment. With these goals in mind, the HCAHPS project has taken substantial steps to assure that the survey is credible, useful, and practical. This methodology and the information it generates are available to the public.
In May 2005, the National Quality Forum (NQF), an organization established to standardize health care quality measurement and reporting, formally endorsed the CAHPS® Hospital Survey. The NQF endorsement represents the consensus of many health care providers, consumer groups, professional associations, purchasers, federal agencies, and research and quality organizations.
About the Survey for January 1, 2025 Patient Discharges and Forward
The HCAHPS Survey is composed of 32 items: 22 items that encompass critical aspects of the hospital experience (communication with nurses, communication with doctors, restfulness of hospital environment, care coordination, responsiveness of hospital staff, communication about medicines, discharge information, cleanliness of the hospital environment, overall rating of hospital, and recommendation of hospital); three items to skip patients to appropriate questions; five items to adjust for the mix of patients across hospitals; and two items to support congressionally-mandated reports.
There are six approved modes of administration for the CAHPS® Hospital Survey: 1) Mail Only; 2) Phone Only; 3) Mail-Phone (mail with phone follow-up of non-respondents); 4) Web-Mail (web survey with mail follow-up); 5) Web-Phone (web survey with phone follow-up); and 6) Web-Mail-Phone (web survey with mail then phone follow-up).
HCAHPS Publications by the HCAHPS Project Team
CMS and the HCAHPS Project Team continually analyze HCAHPS data. To make locating our HCAHPS research easier, we have added a bibliography of publications from the HCAHPS Project Team.
Previous HCAHPS Executive Insight Letters
Please click here to view the previous Executive Insight letters.
To learn more about the HCAHPS Survey, please see the HCAHPS Fact Sheet found at the “Facts” button on this website.
The FY 2020 IPPS Final Rule, establishing the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems (IPPS), is now available on the Federal Register.
To view the Final Rule and related tables, please click on the following link: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-08-16/pdf/2019-16762.pdf.
To Provide Comments or Ask Questions
- For information and technical assistance, contact the HCAHPS Project Team: hcahps@hsag.com or 1-888-884-4007
- To communicate with CMS staff: Hospitalcahps@cms.hhs.gov
Please use the following citation when referencing material on this website:
https://www.hcahpsonline.org Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Baltimore, MD. Month, Date, Year the page was accessed.
For information about the availability of auxiliary aids and services, please visit: http://www.medicare.gov/about-us/nondiscrimination/nondiscrimination-notice.html.
This page was last modified on (12/20/24)