December 30, 2024: Mandatory Patient Experience Evaluation Reporting (OAS CAHPS) Commences in January 2025: Penalties Could Await Surgery Centers that are Not in Compliance!
As OOSS has informed ophthalmic ASCs, the Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers and Systems (OAS CAHPS) will become a mandatory element of CMS’ ASC Quality Reporting Program on January 1, 2025. ASCs should be ready to streamline processes and ensure compliance with the patient episode measures. ASCs that do not administer and report OAS CAHPS in 2025 could be subject to a penalty of 2% of their annual Medicare payment update.
Facilities are required to contract with survey vendors to implement the survey. It appears that a significant number of ASCs have not undertaken this very important task. If you have not yet done so, please contact one or more of the CMS-approved vendors immediately. This link provides a list of all CMS-approved OAS CAHPS vendors: https://oascahps.org/General-Information/Approved-Survey-Vendors.
- EyeProGPO members have the opportunity to engage JL Morgan at a negotiated discount price for its members. Contact EyeProGPO for more information at info@eyeprogpo.com or contact COO, Phil Meyer at pmeyer@eyeprogpo.com.
- Satisfied Patient works with Arbor Associates to automate CAHPS for you. Contact Ryan Schumacher at ryan@satisfiedpatient.com for assistance.
The mail survey includes 34 items (the phone survey, 32 questions) regarding the patient’s outpatient surgery facility experience, including check-in process, facility environment, staff communications, attention to comfort, pain control, provision of pre- and post-op care information, overall experience and patient characteristics.
Unfortunately, there is not a web-only mode for participation. The current collection modes are mail-only, telephone-only; mail survey with telephone follow-up of non-respondence, and web with telephone follow-up of non-respondence.
ASCs will be required to collect at least 200 completed surveys over a 12-month period. Smaller ASCs that cannot collect the required 200 surveys will be required to survey all eligible patients, i.e, no sampling.
Obviously, we do not want to expose our facilities to financial penalties. Please take all necessary steps to ready your ASC for compliance with OAS CAHPS.
Should you have any questions, please contact Michael Romansky, OOSS General Counsel, at mromansky@OOSS.org.