Revised Protocol for Providing HHCAHPS Survey "About You" Response Data to HHAs--UPDATED
folder_openChanges to Protocols and Guidelines, Information for Home Health Agenciescalendar_todayPosted December 10, 2015

CMS has issued an updated protocol for when it is acceptable to provide aggregated responses to the "About You" questions (Questions 26-32). This supersedes the announcement posted on July 20, 2015. The only change to the protocol for reporting the "About You" responses is the minimum number of completed interviews required before a vendor can aggregate and report the data. The text of the July 20, 2015 announcement, shown below, has been updated to reflect the new minimum (11 responses) in bold.

July 20, 2015 announcement:

In an effort to ensure that patients' confidentiality and right to privacy are protected, reporting aggregated responses to the About You questions will only be permitted if there are least 11 responses for every response option for each of the About You questions.

For example, this means that to report the Race question at the aggregated level, an HHA must have at least 11 respondents who have indicated that they are White, 11 respondents who have indicated that they are Black, 11 respondents who have indicated they are Asian, and so on for each of the other race categories. It is no longer acceptable to provide aggregated data based on the total number of respondents who answered the question with any response -rather, the "rule of 11" must now be based on the number of responses to each response option for that question.

Note that it is still acceptable to provide survey responses linked to a sample patient's name if the sample patient gives his or her consent on the "Consent to Share Information" question (added to the mail survey questionnaire or telephone script). It is also still acceptable to provide de-identified survey responses to the core HHCAHPS questions (Questions 1-25) without the patient's consent to share his or her survey responses, as long as no About You data are provided.

This protocol is in effect as of today (December 10, 2015); HHCAHPS vendors do not have to revise any reports previously submitted to their HHA clients but are expected to adhere to this protocol for any results (cross tabulations, frequency distributions, tables, Excel files, or other reporting mechanisms) reported to HHAs after this date.

Please contact the HHCAHPS Coordination Team via e-mail at hhcahps@rti.org or call toll-free at (866) 354-0985 if you have any questions.