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The Physician Patient Relationship and CAHPS

The quality of the physician patient relationship and CAHPS survey results are directly linked!

CAHPS Overview

The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program is a multi-year initiative of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to support the assessment of consumers’ experiences with health care. Standardized CAHPS patient questionnaires can be used to compare results across sponsors and over time.

The many users of CAHPS survey data consider survey results in making decisions and choices that are of great consequence to hospitals, medical practices and individual physicians.

Users of CAHPS Survey Data

  • Patients and consumers: These are the primary audience for CAHPS survey results. By disseminating CAHPS survey results, organizations are encouraging people to use information on quality to make decisions that result in better health care and ultimately better health. Organizations that serve as consumer or patient advocates are also an important audience for CAHPS results because they distribute and interpret the information for their constituents.
  • Public and private organizations that monitor the quality of health care organizations: These include State regulatory agencies, accrediting organizations, professional societies, and Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs). These groups use CAHPS survey results in combination with other quality measures to evaluate performance and help health care organizations identify their strengths and weaknesses. Many also share this information with consumers and patients.
  • Accrediting agencies: While accrediting organizations do not sponsor the surveys themselves, they are a major driver of their use.
    • Purchasers of health care services: Medicare and many Medicaid agencies use CAHPS survey results along with other information on quality and costs to
    • Inform employees and other beneficiaries;
    • Assess the performance of the organizations with which they contract;
    • Identify and select high-value health care organizations; and
    • Design incentive programs to spur providers and plans to improve the quality of care.
    • Provider Organizations and Health Plans: They use CAHPS survey results to identify aspects of their performance that need improvement. Organizations can compare their own performance with that of competitors.
The Physician Patient Relationship and CAHPS Survey Questions

Every survey in the set of setting-specific CAHPS survey instruments includes questions about physicians, since the physician patient relationship is so important to consumer assessments of healthcare quality.

CAHPS Hospital Survey: Physician-Related Questions

Section: Your Care from Doctors
(Response Options: Never, Sometimes, Usually, Always)
  • Q 5: During this hospital stay, how often did doctors treat you with courtesy and respect?
  • Q 6: During this hospital stay, how often did doctors listen carefully to you?
  • Q 7: During this hospital stay, how often did doctors explain things in a way you could understand?
CAHPS Clinician and Group Survey: Physician-Related Questions

Section: How Well Do Doctors Communicate?
(Response Options: Never, Almost Never, Sometimes, Usually, Almost Always and Always)
  • Q 14: In the last 12 months, how often did this doctor explain things [about your child’s health] in a way that was easy to understand?
  • Q 15: In the last 12 months, how often did this doctor listen carefully to you?
  • Q 17: In the last 12 months, how often did this doctor give you easy to understand instructions about taking care of these health problems or concerns?
  • Q 18: In the last 12 months, how often did this doctor seem to know the important information about your/your child’s] medical history?
  • Q 19: In the last 12 months, how often did this doctor show respect for what you had to say?
  • Q 20: In the last 12 months, how often did this doctor spend enough time with you/your child]?
Resource: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality https://www.cahps.ahrq.gov/default.asp


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