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Announcement

Follow-up with HHCAHPS Survey Respondents
folder_openChanges to Protocols and Guidelines, Information for Home Health Agenciescalendar_todayPosted March 3, 2011

Patients included in the Home Health Care CAHPS (HHCAHPS) Survey have the right to voluntarily choose to participate in the survey. They also have the right to answer the questions in the HHCAHPS Survey based on their own perception of the care that they receive, and to express opinions freely and without fear of later repercussions or threat of perceived repercussions from their health care providers.

Although HHCAHPS Survey vendors may share a patient’s individual responses to the HHCAHPS Survey with the patient’s home health agency provided that the respondent has given permission via the use of the “Consent to Share Responses Question,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the HHCAHPS Coordination Team are hereby providing guidelines on how agencies may use the data provided.

Home health agencies are not permitted to contact HHCAHPS Survey respondents to ask them about their answers to the HHCAHPS Survey unless one of the two conditions described below applies. This means that an agency cannot ask a patient for the reasons he or she responded to HHCAHPS Survey questions in a certain way, especially if the respondent’s answer to a question is not the most favorable or most positive response.

Home health agencies may use survey responses linked to information that identifies a patient to aid in the agency’s quality improvement efforts, including identifying a specific home care provider who may not be performing as expected. The other intent of providing a patient’s survey response information is to enable the home health agency to follow up with a patient if one of the following situations or conditions applies.

  • The respondent reports that there have been instances of negligence, abuse, or harm to the patient; and/or
  • The respondent reports that the agency’s home health care provider specifically did something that the respondent perceives as jeopardizing the patient’s health and/or well-being.

Please contact the HHCAHPS Coordination Team via e-mail at hhcahps@rti.org or by phone at (866) 354-0985 if you have any questions or need additional information.