How to Capture Actionable Data to Inform End-of-Year CAHPS Improvements

As we near the end of the year, now is the time to pick up the pace and make a lasting impact on plan performance. Alongside ongoing efforts to close care gaps, improving Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (CAHPS) scores should be a top priority in your work plan if you want to reach the upper echelons of the Star Ratings program.

For the 2024 survey, CAHPS measures are quadruple weighted, making them one of the main drivers of Stars success. Achieving these targets can result in between an 8-12% increase in plan enrollment, sizable bonus payments and significant revenue growth to support future quality improvement strategies.

Improving member experiences before December 31 relies on the ability to rapidly ingest feedback and efficiently produce targeted interventions that resolve negative responses and maintain positive sentiments. As you ramp up your quality improvement campaigns for the big fourth quarter push, reinforce your CAHPS improvement strategies with omnichannel surveys that empower you to promptly assess, analyze and action member feedback.

Assess Member Sentiment with Omnichannel Surveys

Boosting CAHPS scores begins with asking the right questions to capture the right datasets. With member-friendly surveys, you can identify specific pain points members face and develop strategies to improve their experiences.

Your surveys should incorporate high-priority CAHPS-related questions that mimic the official CAHPS survey as closely as possible. Aligning feedback to the appropriate CAHPS measure enables you to accurately evaluate plan performance and identify areas for improvement.

To help health plans capture actionable data to quickly initiate interventions, Healthmine’s CAHPS Pulse Surveys solicit member feedback for the top CAHPS measures, with the option to customize surveys to highlight specific measures and issues they need further insight into. Plans can also ask members if they want or need help, empowering plans to identify which members will have the most impact on plan performance. The rapid implementation and configurability of this solution allows plans to focus valuable time on converting member feedback into meaningful end-of-year quality improvement campaigns.

When collecting member feedback, remember you are not limited to mail-in surveys. Survey administration can utilize emails, text messages, secure messages via apps, live agents and interactive voice responses (IVR). An omnichannel approach allows you to customize the messaging, questions and channels to your member’s needs and preferences while also eliminating the lag time and cost that comes with mail-in surveys.

Analyze Responses and Identify Pain Points

As you begin to capture member feedback, you will want to continuously analyze responses to identify the issues that your members are facing. Compiling your data into regular reports will allow you to steadily sort through member responses and identify what measurement areas members are having trouble with.

For example, through Pulse Surveys, health plans have access to weekly reports that allow them to surface insights into what issues members are facing and where to direct resources. Plans can drill down into member-level feedback and identify which members need the most assistance, enabling them to develop personalized interventions that have the strongest impact on plan performance before the end of the year.

Action Insights with Targeted Interventions

How you action member responses into CAHPS improvement initiatives will depend on what assistance your members need and the depths of the data you have collected.

For example, members who struggle with social determinants of health (SDOH) like transportation insecurities may respond negatively to questions regarding accessing care. If you identify a specific zip code or region where this is a common problem, partnering with mobile clinics may enable members to access care more easily. Or you can reach out to members directly to help them utilize their transportation benefits and encourage them to schedule pick-ups for their appointments.

Working closely with an expert Medicare Advantage consultant can allow you to develop creative initiatives for improving member experiences while accounting for more complex issues like SDOH and coordination of care. Our Pulse Surveys include four hours of consulting services to analyze member-level data and advise on the next steps for your CAHPS improvement strategies.

Get Started on Your End-of-Year CAHPS Strategies

Rolling out an end-of-year CAHPS improvement campaign requires the ability to rapidly distribute member-friendly surveys, thoroughly analyze member feedback to surface insights and action time-sensitive interventions. Valuable time, spend, resources and operational efficiencies can be lost from trying to stand up a campaign without the proper support. Working with the right member experience partner enables you to focus your attention on what really matters: improving your member’s experiences.

With Healthmine’s CAHPS Pulse Surveys, you can rapidly implement a campaign to collect actionable member feedback to inform your end-of-year interventions. Tailor our member-friendly surveys with specific CAHPS-related questions to ensure you are identifying the issues that are most important to your members. You can utilize an omnichannel outreach to distribute surveys, including mailers, emails, text messages, live agents, or IVR. All responses are packaged into weekly reports, allowing you to immediately begin analyzing feedback and initiating interventions to improve CAHPS scores.

A CAHPS Pulse Survey campaign can also be paired with a high-touch outbound call campaign to action insights you capture to motivate hard-to-reach members to close care gaps and address negative CAHPS feedback, further improving plan performance.

Reach out to Healthmine to immediately leverage our CAHPS Pulse Surveys to assess, analyze and action member feedback and improve Star Ratings before the end of the year.