Association of
Northern California Oncologists
|
|
| Patient Survey | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
GENERAL INFORMATION ANCO and MOASC have partnered with SullivanLuallin Group to offer members practices the opportunity to participate in an Oncology-based Patient Satisfaction Survey in 2016. This survey is designed to assess your organization's performance in key areas associated with the ACO and PQRS CAHPS surveys. SullivanLuallin Group's eSurv: Online Patient Satisfaction Survey platform allows you to eficiently and cost-effectively capture how your patients feel about your systems, services, and performance. Download the 2016 Patient Satisfacation Survey offer and enrollment form here.
2014 ANCO PATIENT SATISFACTION SURVEY RESULTS Why Clinical Quality Isn't Enough Anymore Success in today’s healthcare environment depends on more than just delivering clinical quality. Patient satisfaction has become an increasingly important metric ever since the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began instituting programs designed to meet the goals of the "Triple Aim," which seek to improve outcomes, lower costs, and still improve patients' experience of care. With H-CAHPS reimbursements being used as both a carrot and a stick for motivation in the hospital setting, the writing is on the wall for medical groups. Under the Affordable Care Act, the ability of payers to compete for membership is at the heart of their survival, and once these carrots and sticks are used for medical groups (CG-CAHPS), the practices with the highest patient satisfaction scores will have a competitive advantage in vying for reimbursement dollars.
Play Now for Pay Later? That's right! In order to avoid a two percent reduction in reimbursement dollars in 2016, practices with more than 25 physicians will have had to participate in the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) by reporting both claims data and medical (EHR) data in 2014. Also, CMS began rolling out the CAHPS for PQRS survey in 2014; and while this survey is currently voluntary, it is expected to be mandated in the next couple of years. This change will bring the "Triple Aim" into full swing as soon as patient satisfaction data is included as part of the PQRS performance matrix.
ANCO Member Survey Results To help their members assess the patient experience within their practices, ANCO teamed up with SullivanLuallin Group to conduct patient surveys every two years. The 2014 survey saw an improvement in physician performance related measures, scoring statistically significantly higher on seven of nine questions relating to interactions with patients. This also resulted in a statistically significant rise in scores for overall satisfaction and patients' perceptions of the overall quality of medical care. It is no wonder that 98.8% of the patients participating in the survey would recommend the provider to others. On the other hand, questions related to phone communication and billing saw a statistically significant drop relative to their scores in 2012.
Key Drivers of Success To help ANCO members better understand what aspects of the patient experience are driving patient loyalty and satisfaction, SullivanLuallin Group performed a key driver analysis of the ANCO results using linear regression to model the data along with linkage analysis to determine which questions on the survey are most predictive in determining patient loyalty and satisfaction. The analysis showed that those practices able to improve in four key areas will see the biggest gains in overall satisfaction. These areas include teamwork between physicians and staff; care coordination; care and concern shown by physicians and staff; and, the professionalism of the therapy, laboratory and imaging (technical) staff. The message is clear that the patients’ confidence and trust in the provider and the quality of care they've delivered is all centered on the patients’ perceptions of teamwork, coordination, compassion and professionalism at all times and from every member of the practice. This is exactly why clinical quality isn't enough anymore. 2012 ANCO PATIENT SURVEY RESULTS Participation in ANCO's 2012 Patient Satisfaction Survey shown an increase voer 2010--32 physicians produced an ANCO database of 2,156 total responses (sampling error +/- 1.69%), thereby providing a reliable benchmark against which each participant can compare scores with peers. Here are the highlights, showing 2010-2012 trends on teh five-point scale:
The up-trend happens at a particularly fortunate time. We know that all medical providers are coming under closer (and more publically reported) scrutiny. Looking ahead, the Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations and practices seeking certification as medical homes are learning lessons about how to increase medical quality and lower delivery costs--lessons that will be imposed on all providers at some future point. Today's shared savings will produce tomorrow's reimbursement pressures. Here's the thing to keep in mind--the patient experience is one of the pillars of the Affordable Care Act and medical homes and, as such, are high priorities for large organizations seeking bigger slices of the shared-savings pie. What they are achieving now will become reimbursment yardsticks for everyone within 4-5 years at most. Suvey scores are driven by performance, not processes; stated another way, your provivder and staff scores drive the response to every other question on the survey--even satisfaction with parking! Raising doctor/staff performance is the fastest and least costly strategy for raising survey scores. 2010 PATIENT SATISFACTION SURVEY RESULTS: Six member practices (vesus seven in 2008) member practices participated in the 2010 ANCO-sponsored patient satisfaction survey, showing slippage in patient satisfaction when compared with our 2008 survey. Twenty-nine participating physicians produced an ANCO database of 1,259 total responses (with a sampling error ±2.21%), thereby providing a reliable benchmark against which each participant can compare scores with peers. Here are the highlights, showing 2008-2010 trends on the five-point scale:
The down-trend happens at a particularly unfortunate time—all medical providers are likely to come under closer (and more publicly reported) scrutiny in the years ahead, with patient satisfaction as a component of Medicare Five-Star Quality Ratings and payers intensifying efforts to collect incentive awards. Further, patients are increasingly willing to switch providers based on whether they are made to feel valued and important during the visit. Survey scores are driven by performance, not processes; stated another way, provider and staff scores drive the response to every other question on the survey—even satisfaction with parking! Raising doctor/staff performance is the fastest and least costly strategy for raising patient satisfaction survey scores. |