ACO REACH CAHPS Survey Recommendation that REACH ACOs Provide their Vendor with Patient Information
folder_openOther Announcementscalendar_todayPosted August 22, 2024

ACO REACH CAHPS Survey Vendors: Please remind your client REACH ACOs that CMS strongly encourages them to give their vendors three pieces of information which make the survey more successful.

The first is a list of assisted living/residential care facilities where their patients live. The second is their Medicare patient list with patient’s name, address, phone number, and (if the vendor desires) patient date of birth. The third is the contact information for patients’ Healthcare Decisionmaker Power of Attorney (POA).

As noted in Section 3.4.4 of the ACO REACH CAHPS Quality Assurance Guidelines, “CMS strongly encourages REACH ACOs to provide their authorized survey vendor the names and addresses of residential care facilities and assisted living facilities where beneficiaries in their REACH ACO reside. It is preferable if all such facilities can be identified, but at a minimum the REACH ACO should identify all such facilities where five or more of their beneficiaries reside. To identify facilities, the REACH ACO can scan through their beneficiary’s addresses or do a geographical search of nearby residential care/assisted living facilities.”

ACO REACH CAHPS Survey vendors will be responsible for identifying patients in the sample file who are residing at these facilities. These patients will receive their survey in a special envelope designed to catch the attention of facility staff and solicit proxy respondents. These patients also do not receive telephone follow-up due to the burden this causes facility staff.

As noted in Section 3.4.3 of the ACO REACH CAHPS Quality Assurance Guidelines, “CMS encourages REACH ACOs to provide their vendor with updated contact information on all Medicare beneficiaries in their REACH ACO. REACH ACOs may restrict this list to Medicare beneficiaries who had a visit in the sampling window (July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2024, for PY2024).”

As noted in an announcement posted on July 9, 2024, for REACH ACOs who have patients’ Healthcare Decisionmaker POA on file, CMS strongly encourages ACOs to give their vendors the POA name and available contact information for survey purposes. If sharing such information, ACOs need to share it for every patient who has a Healthcare Decisionmaker POA; ACOs cannot share it for selected patients.

A REACH ACO newsletter article will remind ACOs about these recommendations.